The American people know that Trump’s new “TrumpRx” website is nothing but a dressed-up window shopping page where Americans can peruse jacked-up prices for medications they can no longer afford thanks to the GOP war on health care. Most Americans won’t save any money by using the site, and experts warn that families could waste hundreds of dollars purchasing brand-name drugs on the site that are available for cheaper in generic form or through insurance. This latest Trump scheme is a slap in the face to the 22 million hard-working Americans who just saw their health insurance premiums double, triple, and even quadruple due to the Trump-GOP health care cuts — not to mention the millions losing coverage entirely. The vast majority of Americans wanted Trump to extend the Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits that kept health coverage affordable for millions. Instead, they got another election-year vanity project from a president who uses his power to make life easier for billionaires and big corporations while selling out working families every chance he gets.
CNN: TrumpRx Launches, But It’s Unclear if It Will Lower Drug Prices for Most Patients
- “However, it remains to be seen whether direct-to-consumer channels will actually result in lower costs for cash-paying patients with prescriptions”
- “‘Even when you have very large discounts provided for brand-name drugs, they still end up with prices that are not really that affordable to the average person,’ Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said at a November briefing hosted by KFF, a health policy research group.”
- “Also, she noted, the website boasts that one can find ‘the world’s lowest prices on prescription drugs,’ but she doubts that’s true. Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drug Ozempic, for instance, was listed as costing less than $100 in four countries in a 2023 analysis by the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker.”
STAT News: Opinion: TrumpRx Has a Fundamental Flaw
- “But for most Americans, this initiative represents not a solution to our prescription drug price dilemma, but rather a distraction from it. In fact, TrumpRx won’t help most Americans because it is designed for cash-paying, uninsured patients rather than the roughly 85% of Americans with prescription drug insurance coverage. For insured people, existing pharmacy benefits remain cheaper, and using TrumpRx may prevent payments from counting toward insurance deductibles and annual out-of-pocket maximums.”
- “The fundamental flaw in the TrumpRx model lies in a misunderstanding — or perhaps a willful misrepresentation — of how most Americans pay for their prescription medications. Most insured people pay far less out of pocket when using their insurance coverage than they would by paying “discounted” cash prices, even when those prices are subsidized by manufacturers.”
POLITICO: Trump’s Drug-Pricing Deals Won’t Benefit Most Americans Today.
- “‘The vast majority of consumers are not going to see any benefit in their pocketbook,’ said Chris Meekins, a Raymond James health care analyst, and a former health official in the first Trump administration.”
Spectrum News 1: As TrumpRx Platform Prepares to Launch, Experts Warn Savings May Be Minimal
- “‘It’s not really a substitute for insurance coverage, and even at discounted prices of maybe $250 a month, that’s still probably going to be a lot more than most people can afford to pay out of pocket,’ [Deputy Director for Program on Medicare Policy at KFF Juliette] Cubanski said.”
CNBC: White House Launches Direct-To-Consumer Drug Site TrumpRx. Here’s What to Know
- “‘My guess is that for most drugs, at least most brand-name medications, people are likely to get a better deal using their insurance rather than purchasing a drug through a direct-to-consumer website,’ [Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the program on Medicare Policy at KFF, a health policy research organization] 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,’ Cubanski said.”
NBC: Trump Launches Discount Drug Platform: What to Know
- “‘There’s no clear advantage for most people to use TrumpRx to purchase their medications,’ said Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the program on Medicare policy at KFF.”
- “What’s more, what people with insurance spend through TrumpRx may not count toward their insurance benefits, which means it doesn’t help them meet their deductibles or out-of-pocket maximums.”
ABC News: Trump Unveils TrumpRx Website He Says Will Help Americans Buy Lower-Priced Prescription Drugs
- “‘TrumpRx’s offerings are very limited, fewer than 50 drugs listed,’ Rena Conti, an associate professor at the Boston University Questrom School of Business, told ABC News.”
CBS News: White House Launches TrumpRx Discounted Drug Site
- “The direct-to-patient stuff is, in my view, a sideshow and branding opportunity for Trump,’ Sean Sullivan, a health economist at the University of Washington, told CBS News last year. ‘Most patients have drug coverage. … Very few are going to buy medications with cash, unless the drug is not a covered benefit, like weight loss or erectile dysfunction drugs.’”
STAT News: What to Know About TrumpRx, the Trump Administration’s Prescription Drug Platform
- “While patients on insurance may have to pay the list price of a drug before meeting their deductible, once they’ve met their deductible, they usually pay a much smaller copay. That means the discount that TrumpRx displays may be inflating the actual amount of savings that patients will experience over time, if they get any savings at all.”
New York Times: Trump’s Online Drugstore Opens for Business
- “But researchers who study drug pricing warned that many people would pay too much if they use TrumpRx.”
- “It is unlikely that many consumers will save money by using TrumpRx. Nearly all of the drugs on the site are already widely covered through insurance, and some are available as inexpensive generics from competing manufacturers. A person who has low out-of-pocket costs for a drug through insurance could waste hundreds of dollars a year paying out-of-pocket through TrumpRx.”
- “‘There may be patients who think this is a good deal and then end up financially worse off,’ said Rachel Sachs, a law professor who studies drug pricing at Washington University in St. Louis. She was an adviser on prescription drug policy in the Biden administration.”
Wall Street Journal: White House Debuts Drug-Buying Site TrumpRx, With Roughly 40 Medications
- “The website likely won’t have a substantial impact on the amount most Americans pay for their prescriptions, as most of Americans are insured—either through private or government plans—and are likely to get a better deal on the drugs via their coverage.”
- “‘TrumpRx is really catering to the self-pay market. That’s just a very small percentage of Americans,’ said Ipsita Smolinski, a health policy consultant. ‘You just don’t have a big proportion of Americans that are able to take advantage.’”
Washington Post: Trump Launches TrumpRx.gov, Branding His Push to Lower Prescription Prices
- “TrumpRx’s focus on cutting “list prices” for drugs may obscure that many Americans already can obtain discounts and rebates that lower the cost of their medication. Novo Nordisk, for example, already offers Ozempic available at significant discounts through its own website.”
- “‘The Administration has yet to provide any public information that the announcements will result in any real savings for consumers,’ Sen. Ron Wyden (Oregon) and three other top Democrats on congressional committees that oversee parts of the U.S. health system said in a joint statement in December. ‘In fact, economists have questioned whether consumers will see any meaningful benefits. The public deserves answers on this and a better understanding of what this means for their everyday costs.’”
People: Trump Administration’s Discount Drug Platform TrumpRx Launches Tonight. Here’s What to Know
- “‘There’s no clear advantage for most people to use TrumpRx to purchase their medications,’ Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the program on Medicare Policy at KFF, told NBC News.
Raw Story: TrumpRx Launch Backfires as Observers Call Out Trump’s Fuzzy Math and Buried ‘Fine Print’
- “Trump’s enthusiasm crashed into a brick wall with skeptics, as Democrats demand concrete proof of actual savings. Northwestern University health economist Craig Garthwaite called it ‘far from revolutionary,’ noting most Americans can’t afford brand-name drugs without insurance anyway. Social media observers called out the president over his fuzzy math.”