For months now, Trump has claimed over and over again that he’s lowering drug prices by cutting opaque deals with drug companies. New research shows that couldn’t be further from the truth. This week, Senate Democrats on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee are releasing a report showing that the very drugmakers Trump has cut pricing deals with have raised the costs of hundreds of their medications over the past year for working Americans. Even as families across the country have been forced to make difficult decisions between paying for health care and affording rent and groceries as premiums and out-of-pocket costs go through through roof, these drug companies are raking in record-high profits and continue to release new high-cost drugs with the average annual price tag of a starter home – over $350,000 a year. Meanwhile, the Trump administration still refuses to say what exactly these companies agreed to as part of his so-called deals. Here’s the truth about Trump’s total failure to lower drug prices as drug companies hold patients hostage:
THEN: Earlier This Year, Trump Promised He’s Lowering Drug Prices Sevenfold. Supposedly Cut Deals with Drug Companies To Lower Costs For Patients. Trump has claimed over and over again that the opaque deals he cut with top drugmakers will lower drug prices:
- During a Kentucky rally in March, Trump claimed he’s slashing drug prices by “700 percent.”
- During a visit to an Ohio pharmaceutical manufacturing and development site in March, Trump claimed “we’re paying the lowest prices in the world” for prescription drugs.
- During his State of the Union Address in late February, Trump claimed his “most favored nation” deals would drive down drug prices:
- “Under my just enacted Most Favored Nation agreements, Americans who have for decades paid by far the highest prices of any nation anywhere in the world for prescription drugs will now pay the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs. I took prescription drugs, a very big part of healthcare, from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest.”
- During his ‘TrumpRx’ launch in early February, Trump also claimed his “most favored nation” deals would drive down drug prices:
- “Under the most favored nation agreements my administration has negotiated, the United States will pay the lowest price paid by any other country. […] [drug costs are] going way down for the United States, come all the way down by a difference of as much as 300, 400, 500, even 600 percent, even more than that in some cases.”
NOW: The Very Drug Companies Trump Cut Deals With Are Still Raising Prices and Banking Record Profits.
- Trump’s “most favored nation” deals do not lower prescription drug costs for the majority of patients. They only apply to the price Medicaid pays for prescription drugs, which is already discounted 77% on average, not the amount people with private insurance or Medicare coverage are forced to fork over.
- The very same drug companies that Trump cut drug pricing deals with have raised the costs of hundreds of their medications – including expensive gene therapies, cancer medications, and multiple sclerosis drugs – over the past year.
- The companies that signed deals with Trump made huge profits during the first full year of Trump’s second term, raking in a combined $177 billion in profits – an explosive 65% increase in profits from 2024.
- The same drug companies have also continued to release new high-cost drugs with an average price tag of $353,000 a year.
- Trump and his team have refused to disclose what exactly drug companies agreed to in his deals.
- Beyond Trump’s “most favored nation deals,” his “TrumpRx” plan does nothing to make drugs cheaper for most Americans and his big, ugly bill is costing seniors and taxpayers billions in drug costs by delaying Medicare negotiations on popular and expensive cancer treatments – all while big drug companies and their ultra-wealth executives got huge tax breaks.
###