Raised in the Kalispell pharmacy her grandparents owned for 45 years, Kimberly Murray has watched the price of medication balloon as patients increasingly absorb the rising out-of-pocket costs. She’s also watched as coverage policies shift and evolve to offset those costs, including when the Medicare prescription drug benefit program launched in 2006. Also known as Medicare Part D, the optional program incorporates coverage for prescription drugs into the federal government’s health insurance system.
Today, as the owner of two Flathead Valley pharmacies — Bigfork Drug in Bigfork and Alpine Apothecary in Whitefish — Murray’s once again paying close attention as the federal government takes another stab at blunting the country’s steep drug prices with a new, yet familiar, approach.
The Trump Administration in early February launched TrumpRx.gov, a government website featuring discount coupons for prescription drugs. President Donald Trump brokered deals directly with manufacturers for “most-favored-nation” pricing, asserting that the prices matched the lowest medication costs in the world, even as a recent New York Times review contradicted the claim.
In northwest Montana, pharmacists are sifting through the website to determine what it could mean for their patients as Trump continues to expand the number of featured discounted drugs.
“The site itself is really easy to use,” Murray said.
The Trump Rx website. Image source: trumprx.gov
Patients can search the site for a medication and print out the pertinent coupon, or save it to a virtual wallet and bring it to a pharmacy. The structure functions in a manner similar to GoodRx, a prescription coupon company launched in 2011 that is also a TrumpRx partner.
In addition to the traditional “lick, stick and pour” duties — licking labels, sticking them on bottles, and pouring pills — Murray and her pharmacists spend a lot of their time learning the intricacies of patients’ insurance plans and the coupons’ fine print. Their goal is to ensure that patients receive the biggest discount, while the small pharmacies receive adequate reimbursement.
Patients who are enrolled in federal or state healthcare insurance are ineligible for some TrumpRx coupons. That includes those who may be eligible for a government plan based on factors such as their age or income, even if they are not enrolled in one, Murray said.
At Bigfork Drug, Murray said most individual patients on Medicare hew to an older age demographic and require multiple expensive prescription medications.
“That’s the population that is in that realm of needing medical care, having multiple diagnoses and on expensive meds,” Murray said.
The sticker price for other TrumpRx coupons that insured patients are eligible for may appear to offer a notable savings. But depending on a patient’s deductible, how many prescriptions they have, and how frequently they need refills, they might end up paying more in the long run using the coupon than they would if they paid out of pocket.
The government website also recommends that patients check their insurance first before using a coupon.
“If people choose to go through these copay cards and not bill their insurance, they’re not going to meet their max out of pocket and may spend more over the long haul,” Murray said. “Yes, it’s more expensive through their insurance, but they got (a prescription filled) twice, they paid the high amount, and now they’ve spent $2,000 and they’re fully covered through the rest of the year at zero copay.”
Medication capsules and ingredients at Alpine Apothecary in Whitefish on March 30, 2026. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon
The TrumpRx coupons also apply exclusively to name-brand drugs, whereas the generic version of a drug is likely still cheaper than the discount, Murray noted. Sometimes, however, patients can’t use the generic option due to reactions to different binders or fillers that might be used in the cheaper version of a drug.
“For those people, that is beneficial. That is a savings,” she said. “But the percentage of people that are not able to take the generic equivalent, FDA-approved form of the brand name — after the patent has run out and then we have both the brand and generic available — is very small. I would say less than 3%, and that’s probably being generous.”
Some of the prominent drugs listed on TrumpRx are fertility medicines and diabetes drugs, known as GLP-1s and popularized for weight loss use, including Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound. Those are often not covered through insurance. For those, the TrumpRx discount is palpable — for example, Wegovy pills, which normally have a wholesale price of $1,349, are discounted by 78% to 89%.
At Alpine Apothecary in Whitefish, Murray is often asked about the pharmacy’s cash price for Wegovy. She’s now able to point toward the TrumpRx discount.
“Now we have a solution for those people that thought that it was unattainable,” she said.
The Trump Rx website. Image source: trumprx.gov
The website also features coupons for other prescription drugs such as hormone and thyroid medications, in which cases it’s more common for people to need the brand-name drug, Murray said.
The number of coupons listed on the government website is still only a drop in the bucket. In about two months, the list has grown from just over 40 drugs to about 60. At one of her small pharmacies, Murray said she keeps around 160 brand-name drugs in stock and special orders others.
“It needs to grow,” she said. “When I run my catalog for brand-name drugs, there’s over 2,800 brand-name drugs that I may get a prescription for.”
Yvonne Christow is the director of Sykes Pharmacy, which has locations in Kalispell and Columbia Falls. Under the wing of Greater Valley Health Center, the pharmacy serves a variety of patients with a focus on uninsured and underinsured patient populations.
So far, a few patients have used the government coupons.
“Since the TrumpRx program is still new, I am uncertain, but hopeful of its effectiveness,” Christow said in a message to the Beacon. She noted that Greater Valley also has an internal program that allows uninsured or underinsured patients to obtain medications at affordable prices.
GoodRx, a partner of TrumpRx, has offered drug discount coupons for years. While it cuts out the middleman to offer patients lower prices, small pharmacies like Murray’s have stopped accepting GoodRx coupons. The fees GoodRx charges to pharmacies often result in a small business like hers losing money, she said.
“Our pharmacies don’t take them because we can’t,” Murray said. “We can’t run through those prescriptions and lose money on every drug in order to take GoodRx.”
When running a TrumpRx coupon recently for a patient that used a GoodRx code for Wegovy, Murray noted the TrumpRx coupon didn’t charge the pharmacy fees but that it’s something she’s watching out for.
Ken Chatriand, the pharmacy manager at the University of Montana’s Health Center, noted that the problem, negative remittance, is common with programs like GoodRx. He can often find patients a similar or better discount through the health center’s internal loyalty program, which are often offered by larger pharmacies, such as CVS and Walgreens.
“They act like internal insurance,” Chatriand said. “The con with that though is maybe (a patient has) a high deductible, and if they reach that deductible, those meds will be free. If you do an internal system, they’re not being submitted, and if you keep doing them the deductible will not be met.”
Sykes Pharmacy in Kalispell on March 30, 2026. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon
Patients can use coupons through TrumpRx in three ways: going through their pharmacy, going through a specialty pharmacy, or ordering direct-to-consumer from the manufacturer. It’s the latter, having drugs mailed to a patient’s house, that concerns Murray the most.
“When you have your whole medical profile at one of my pharmacies, we’re going to go over everything in your profile for a drug interaction. We are going to counsel you and make sure that you fully understand how to take the med, what side effects to watch for — any questions, we’re a phone call away or you can walk in our door,” Murray said.
“They’re not necessarily getting the counseling with that drug because it’s kind of an item that they’re just purchasing off of a shelf.”
Sifting through all the variables — patients’ deductibles, prescription needs, insurance reimbursements, and the fine print that conditions some discount coupons — Murray and Chatriand work with patients on an individual, case-by-case basis to determine what avenue might save patients the most. They recommend patients chat with their pharmacists about their options to see whether using a discount coupon like TrumpRx pays off in the long run.
“Any potential savings that we can get to patients that comes from the drug manufacturers is beneficial, and that’s where they’re starting. Is it a complete solution right now? Absolutely not,” Murray said. “Is it opening up the door for more of this to be talked about? Yes.”