TrumpRx: There are pros and cons for consumers

TrumpRx Pretends to Fix Drug Prices When The Market Already Did 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last night, the Trump Administration rolled out a new website, TrumpRx.gov, to facilitate direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug purchases on a limited range of prescription medications. While TrumpRx is being framed by the administration as a breakthrough moment in lowering U.S. drug prices, “the world’s lowest prices,”  a closer look suggests that TrumpRx is more of a neatly branded reflection of changes that were already underway in the marketplace.

Fred Roeder, health economist and director of the Consumer Choice Center, said of the TrumpRx offers, “A major issue with TrumpRx’s comparisons is that they rely heavily on U.S. ‘list prices’ which are largely fictional. In the U.S., almost nobody actually pays the list price because insurers negotiate deep discounts behind the scenes. In many other developed countries, list prices are closer to the real prices patients or national health systems pay. Comparing the two as equivalent is misleading.”

This problem extends to the TrumpRx homepage and its listing of GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic. The site prominently displays entry-level starter doses, the first month’s dose, rather than the full therapeutic dose patients will need long-term. This skews the consumer’s perception of affordability. Moreover, direct-to-consumer programs from manufacturers like Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly already offer prices very similar to those TrumpRx showcases.

Roeder continued, “To be clear, there is a genuinely positive trend here. Cash-paying patients in the U.S. are finally getting fairer prices. For years, uninsured patients, high-deductible patients, or those whose insurance didn’t cover a drug were often forced to pay sticker prices that were dramatically higher than what insurers paid.”

“A genuinely good aspect of TrumpRx is that it does not add yet another payment intermediary. Pharmacies are still paid directly by manufacturers or wholesalers rather than through a new government-run clearinghouse. That simplifies the system rather than complicating it further.”

In the last few years, pharmaceutical companies have been moving toward direct-to-consumer models, cutting out layers of intermediaries such as pharmacy benefit managers. This shift has begun to bring cash prices closer to what insurers actually pay. TrumpRx didn’t create this. It is largely amplifying it.

Roeder concluded, “For any individual consumer whose health relies on access to a certain pharmaceutical, lower prices will always be meaningful. What the United States has to balance, however, is that drug pricing isn’t just about today’s budget pressures. We must also ensure there’s robust innovation happening in biotech in the future. Short-term wins for patients and politicians can come at the cost of long-term medical progress by reducing the profitability of breakthroughs, which would have the downstream effect of leaving many diseases untreated or incurable.”