{"id":471096,"date":"2026-02-10T18:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T18:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/471096\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T18:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T18:05:08","slug":"trump-rx-prescription-drug-site-not-a-solution-for-many-patients-experts-say-us-healthcare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/471096\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Rx prescription drug site \u2018not a solution\u2019 for many patients, experts say | US healthcare"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration<\/a> has launched TrumpRx, but there are other sites offering discounts on more medications, and the new government site will appeal to a very limited group of patients, experts say.<\/p>\n

Trump has promised reforms on the unusually high drug prices in the US, and he called the announcement \u201cthe largest reduction in prescription drug prices in history\u201d at a press conference on Thursday. Yet the site only lists 43 medications, more than half of which are available in generic form at significantly cheaper prices elsewhere.<\/p>\n

The site may make some weight loss and fertility drugs not covered by insurance more accessible, but overall \u201cit is not a solution for high drug prices in the United States\u201d, said Sean Sullivan, professor of health economics and policy and former dean of pharmacy at the University of Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsumers can probably get a cheaper version of these medicines through insurance and their pharmacies, or via cash pay services like Cost Plus Drugs than by the deals offered through TrumpRx,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHealthcare is really complicated in America, and even the supply of prescription drugs is really complicated in America, and this has added to the complexity, instead of reducing complexity,\u201d said Rena Conti, associate professor of markets, public policy, and law at Boston University\u2019s Questrom School of Business.<\/p>\n

The best course is likely still to \u201cask your local pharmacist what the best deal is\u201d, Conti said.<\/p>\n

In the US, prices for all drugs \u2013 brand names and generics \u2013 were 2.7 times higher than in comparison countries in 2022, according to a report<\/a> from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Eight in 10 adults say the cost of prescription drugs is \u201cunreasonable\u201d, and about three in 10 said they haven\u2019t taken their medicines as prescribed because of the cost, according<\/a> to the health policy nonprofit KFF.<\/p>\n

Healthcare is set to become even more expensive as Republicans in Congress have proposed nearly $1bn in Medicaid cuts and allowed Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire.<\/p>\n

As it currently stands, the limited offerings on TrumpRx seem unlikely to compete with established sites. Cost Plus Drugs, the low-cost medication site founded by billionaire Mark Cuban and radiologist Alex Oshmyansky, offers more than 2,000 drugs. TrumpRx is reportedly powered<\/a> by GoodRx, a popular site offering coupons and price comparisons.<\/p>\n

The medication Protonix, which treats gastrointestinal issues such heartburn, stomach ulcers and reflux, is listed<\/a> by TrumpRx at $200.10, while the generic version costs<\/a> $6.07 on Cost Plus Drugs. The medication Xeljanz, which treats rheumatoid arthritis, is listed as $1,518 on TrumpRx \u2013 but GoodRx points out that Xeljanz is free with most insurance plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of them aren\u2019t even the treatments of choice for many of the diseases,\u201d Sullivan said. And most of the products are quite old; the median time on the market is 26 years, he pointed out. \u201cThese are drugs that the pharmaceutical industry has given up marketing a long time ago, like Protonix, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n

For some medications, TrumpRx offers coupons for patients to present at pharmacies, while others have links to buy directly from manufacturers or specialty pharmacies; those direct purchases usually don\u2019t count toward out-of-pocket insurance maximums.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not fundamentally altering access or furthering transparency at this point in time, except for a very few selected patients who are using a very limited set of drugs,\u201d Conti said. A handful of drugs on the site are relatively affordable for people who typically pay out of pocket \u2013 especially fertility treatments, she said. Often these treatments are not covered by insurance, and prices are steep.<\/p>\n

Gonal F, which helps stimulate ovulation, costs $168 on TrumpRx, compared to $432 on through Alto Pharmacy, according to GoodRx. \u201cFor very niche populations and very specific medication, at least in the case of infertility, it looks like this might be a good deal,\u201d Conti said.<\/p>\n

Yet making some medications cheaper does not make in vitro fertilization (IVF) more accessible to most patients, as the Trump administration has promised, since drugs represent only a fraction of the costs of IVF, Sean Tipton, chief advocacy and policy officer at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are pleased to see fertility medications included in the TrumpRx portal,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are, however, plenty of questions as to just how helpful this program will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weight loss drugs known as GLP-1s, under the names Wegovy, Ozempic, and Zepbound, are also available. \u201cZepbound looks like it\u2019s a good deal. It\u2019s also the exact same deal that\u2019s being offered by going to Lilly Direct,\u201d the manufacturer\u2019s site, Conti said.<\/p>\n

But the lower prices for Wegovy and Ozempic, both marketed by Novo Nordisk, expire in a month or two, and they are for the lowest dose, which most people do not stay on. \u201cI fail to see how the Novo offer is really going to help people who want this drug,\u201d Conti said.<\/p>\n

Trump promised a savings of 578% for Novo Nordisk\u2019s drugs, which would mean the company would pay patients to take the drugs. The site itself says the discount is 74 to 85% off the list price.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s \u201cnot surprising\u201d that the administration\u2019s description of the website \u201cbears no relation to reality\u201d, said Sarah Karlin-Smith, research director on access to medicines at Public Citizen. \u201cThey\u2019re pretending they just rolled out the best thing ever to save Americans on drug prices, and in reality, many Americans, if they use this website, probably would actually spend more money on drugs than they needed to.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than what was listed, Conti questioned which drugs didn\u2019t appear on TrumpRx. \u201cThere are only 43 drugs, and there\u2019s 17 pharmaceutical manufacturers at least who have signed most-favored-nation deals. So where are the other drug companies and where are the other drugs?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

The project does nothing to address the underlying issues of medication pricing and healthcare access in the US, Sullivan said. \u201cIt just obfuscates what we really need to be doing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a distraction from what we need to be doing, which is thoughtful, careful policy approaches to managing drug costs and balancing that with investments for innovation in the US.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration has launched TrumpRx, but there are other sites offering discounts on more medications, and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-471096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}