Washington, D.C. – Today, Donald Trump headed to Cincinnati in a pitiful attempt to gaslight Ohioans about his record on prescription drug costs. No matter what Trump said, he can’t hide from his abysmal record: He promised to bring down drug prices by “1,000 percent,” yet the GOP’s signature tax bill pads drug company profits and raises drug costs for thousands of seniors. Moreover, since he took office, drugmakers have hiked prices for over 750 medications.
“Despite Trump’s gaslighting, his health care crisis is hiding in plain sight,” said Protect Our Care President Brad Woodhouse. “Across the nation, seniors who can’t afford skyrocketing drug prices are cutting pills in half. Families are sitting around the kitchen table, game-planning which prescriptions to fill and which ones to forgo because it’s simply unaffordable to take them all. Working Americans are forced to choose between rent, groceries, and lifesaving treatments.
“While millions are reeling from an unprecedented health care affordability crisis, the only thing he and Republicans have accomplished is padding the pockets of billionaires and big corporations while the American people pay the price. You couldn’t even script this level of incompetence if you tried. That’s because the game was never about lowering costs for working people. This is an administration of billionaires, by billionaires, and for billionaires — and big drug companies are just the latest on Wall Street to cash in.”
Background
There’s no evidence that Trump has lowered drug prices for Americans. While Democrats have saved seniors and taxpayers billions on drugs, Trump’s drug pricing executive order was Big Pharma’s Christmas wishlist — his “deals” pad their bottom lines with tax breaks and tariff exemptions, and TrumpRx fails to save the vast majority of Ohioans and Americans a single penny. Trump’s sad track record is made even worse by him and congressional Republicans’ cutting over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to bankroll tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. Now, over 15 million Americans will lose coverage, costs are spiking for millions more, and over 750 hospitals, nursing homes, and other critical providers nationwide have closed, are at risk of closing, or have been forced to cut essential services.
By the Numbers:
- Nearly 2.2 million Ohio seniors were denied savings on lifesaving cancer drugs thanks to Trump’s Blockbuster Giveaway to big drug companies.
- 1 in 3 Americans were forced to skip doses, ration medications, or not fill prescriptions due to high costs and TrumpRx failed to save the vast majority of Ohioans a single dime.
- Drugmakers hiked the prices of over 750 medications during Trump’s first year back in office.
- Trump raked in over $10 million in donations from Big Pharma and spent the past year selling out Ohioans by rewarding them with huge returns on their pay-to-play investments.
- Ten of the largest drugmakers collectively pocketed $50 billion more in profits during Trump’s first year back in office.
- In 2025, the 10 largest drugmakers netted over $130 billion, after spending over $80 billion showering their wealthy shareholders with stock buybacks and dividends.
- In the GOP tax scam, Trump lowered the corporate tax rate, padded drugmakers’ profits by an additional $15 billion with a special tax break, expanded the tax break through the IRS, then gave Big Pharma an additional $9 billion gift at the expense of seniors and taxpayers.
- Thanks to Trump’s tax giveaways to Big Pharma, Johnson and Johnson, AbbVie, Pfizer, Amgen, and Merck have paid $0 in federal taxes since 2018.
- Drugmakers raked in over $50 billion in sales in 2025 on top-selling products that Trump specially carved out from Medicare drug price negotiation.