The main question in the upcoming midterms may be affordability. The rising costs of prescription drugs during the Biden years hurt America’s middle class and seniors gravely. President Trump promised to fight back and his administration is delivering.
This week, President Trump may have just delivered the most historic week for prescription drug reform ever. Why isn’t the mainstream media talking about it?
First, his FTC Chair, Andrew Ferguson, announced a historic deal with Cigna/Express Scripts to lower prescription drug prices. The company agreed to make some changes to its PBM (“pharmacy benefit manager”) operations that will significantly cut consumer healthcare costs.
President Trump showed his business mastery when crafting the deal. Now, the system whereby drug prices are negotiated will actually benefit the consumer.
Then, on Thursday night, he launched Trump Rx, a website that will serve as a portal for the lowest prices for prescription drugs in the country. Think of it as the Google Hotels or Google Flights for drug pricing. It will route consumers to the cheapest offerings around.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described it as “a state of the art website for Americans consumers to purchase low-cost prescription drugs” and declared that “it will save millions of Americans money.”
And the president is already getting the insurers to cover the drugs found within it.
In the settlement Chair Ferguson reached with Cigna earlier this week, the Trump administration announced that the company will provide covered access to Trump Rx. I would be shocked if the president doesn’t quickly make deals to ensure its competitors soon do the same.
Make no mistake: Big Pharma is shaking in its boots right now.
D.C. talked about lower drug prices for a decade but did nothing to move the needle. They did “for-show” things, like hold hearings and make good campaign speeches, but they refused to pass or implement any legitimate reform proposals. Trump RX is real and the change it will make in people’s lives will be real.
More than two-thirds of Congress cash big, fat campaign checks from pharma executives, who very much encourage that type of “all talk, no action” behavior that The Swamp has grown accustomed to showing us.
President Trump — beholden to no one — is not like them in any way, shape, or form. That’s why he was able to get this done.
The usual critics will claim that Trump’s healthcare dealmaking did not go far enough this week. Some have already started to say as much.
These Monday night quarterbacks are being absolutely ridiculous. Anyone familiar with the history of drug pricing in the U.S. knows that this was a big week — maybe the most significant week for drug pricing reform ever.
Trump has turned the PBM industry around 100%, to the point that there is nothing else to fix. And with the launch of Trump Rx, the prescription drug industry is a thousand steps more in the right direction.
Suggesting otherwise is not serious policy analysis; it is a refusal to give the president credit for solving a problem that the political class talked about for years but never really touched.
At some point, we need to recognize victory when we see it and give the president credit for adding another historic piece of his legacy.
Now is not the time to criticize. Now is a time to celebrate!
Tip of the red “Make America Great Again” cap to President Trump, FTC Chair Ferguson, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz everyone involved. This is monumental stuff, and we’re all so grateful.
Gaetz is a former U.S. congressman from Florida and a former Attorney General nominee from President Donald J. Trump. Presently, Gaetz is the host of The Matt Gaetz Show on One America News Network.