TrumpRx promised a supermarket for cheaper drugs but delivered a boutique
The TrumpRx website, launched to provide affordable prescription drugs, currently offers discounts on only a small fraction of the medications produced by participating companies. Critics and health policy experts argue the program lacks the scale necessary to significantly impact drug pricing for consumers.
Why it matters
It highlights the gap between administration policy promises and the practical implementation of healthcare cost-reduction initiatives.
A centerpiece of President Trump's push to make prescription medicines more affordable is a government website for drug discounts that carries his own name. TrumpRx, launched in February, now boasts 92 deals on brand-name prescription drugs made by pharmaceutical companies that announced highly publicized agreements with the Trump administration.
But nearly six months since the website's launch, those deals on TrumpRx represent fewer than 12% of the more than 800 brand-name drugs made by the participating pharmaceutical companies.
A wide range of medicines — including treatments for inflammatory conditions, HIV and cancer — aren't offered by TrumpRx, according to an NPR analysis of a database of drugs on the market maintained by the Food and Drug Administration.
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