President Trump has launched a new website to help Americans obtain prescription drugs at lower costs. The site, which aggregates discounts from pharmaceutical companies and incorporates deals that Trump has made with several major drug makers, is expected to benefit some customers, while others may be better off continuing to rely on health insurance.
Trump announces TrumpRx, providing cash discounts for certain drugs
President Trump on Thursday held an event to launch his TrumpRx website, which he has made a central part of his plans to overhaul healthcare and lower drug costs in the United States. Appearing with Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Joe Gebbia, Director of the National Design Studio, Trump declared, “Starting tonight, dozens of the most commonly used prescription drugs will be available at dramatic discounts for all consumers through a new website called TrumpRx.gov.”
Trump presented the website as a way of lowering the disparity between the high cost of drugs in the United States compared to the average cost of many of those drugs in other countries. Trump also touted his negotiation of “most favored nation status” for drugs, by which the prices of certain drugs were lowered to the lowest cost the same drug costs abroad. He bragged that drug costs would go down in the United States while they might go up in other countries as a result of his negotiations with drug companies. He credited his use of tariffs for forcing other countries to accept higher drug costs in order to lower prices in the United States.
Benefits for weight-loss and fertility drugs, uninsured purchasers
In broad strokes, TrumpRx will function in a way that is similar to the GoodRx website, which aggregates coupons and discounts on drugs and provides a centralized hub for accessing these reduced prices. The TrumpRx discounts will only be offered for cash-paying customers, not those who seek to pay for their prescription drugs through insurance. GoodRx has partnered with TrumpRx, explaining to ABC News, “The self-pay price is hosted on the GoodRx platform and GoodRx then integrates the price into TrumpRx.”
Currently, a few dozen drugs are available to be purchased through TrumpRx, produced by five major pharmaceutical companies with which Trump negotiated deals: AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, EMD Serono, Novo Nordisk, and Pfizer. The website says that “many more drugs are coming soon.”
TrumpRx is part of the president’s larger initiative to lower drug prices. Experts agree that the deals offered on the site will be beneficial for certain people, though there is no agreement on how widespread those benefits will be. Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the Medicare Policy Program at KFF, a health policy research organization, noted that people without insurance could obtain drugs at a lower cost through TrumpRx. But, she said, “If they’re able to get a drug covered by their insurance at a relatively affordable copay, then there’s not a great upside to using the TrumpRx website.”
In addition to the uninsured, the site is poised to benefit those seeking certain types of drugs that are not yet covered by insurance, such as several popular weight-loss drugs and fertility drugs associated with IVF. Benjamin Jolley, PharmD, of the American Economic Liberties Project, explained to ABC News, “The fertility drug discount is legitimately a big deal for people trying to get IVF,” noting, “These medicines are quite expensive and this seems like a big discount.”
While parts of Trump’s health agenda—such as his attempts to undermine the Affordable Care Act—have been criticized as misguided and dangerous, experts have offered limited enthusiasm for TrumpRx. The website may not benefit most customers who have insurance plans that cover drugs, and it cannot achieve the mathematically impossible “300, 400, 500, even 600 percent” reduction in drug prices, but it is poised to make some popular drugs cheaper for those paying out of pocket.