House Democrats say TrumpRx portal exaggerates prescription discounts

Democrats on a top House panel released a report on Tuesday alleging that the White House’s new platform to provide Americans with access to discounted prescription drugs does not significantly lower the cost of the listed medications. 

President Donald Trump announced the launch of TrumpRx.gov on Feb. 5, which his administration said would allow users “to access large discounts on many of the most popular and highest-priced medicines in the country, paying prices in line with the lowest paid by other developed nations (known as the most-favored-nation, or MFN, price).”

The TrumpRx platform was created by the National Design Studio, a White House initiative established by an executive order last August with the goal of modernizing and enhancing the usability of federal websites. TrumpRx is one of the most recent sites created by the NDS, which has also designed other new platforms for the administration, like the RealFood.gov website that outlines the White House’s new dietary guidelines.

When the TrumpRx portal launched, the White House said it had initially reached MFN pricing agreements with five leading drug manufacturers — AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, EMD Serono, Novo Nordisk and Pfizer — to provide discounts on 43 medications. 

The platform’s homepage banner says the site allows users to “find the world’s lowest prices on prescription drugs.” Tuesday’s staff report from Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, however, found that, “for nearly half of the drugs listed on TrumpRx, that [claim] is either misleading or completely false.”

For 15 of the drugs listed on the platform, the report said that “a less expensive generic version is available,” although “this information is not provided anywhere on the TrumpRx website.” Another seven discounted medications, the document said, already had pre-existing coupons available through GoodRx at the same or similar prices.

“For at least three other drugs, coupons and discounts directly available from manufacturers existed before any deal between the manufacturer and the Trump Administration,” the report said. “And for two drugs, TrumpRx offers a direct-to-consumer price that is higher than the price patients would pay by using coupons available directly from the manufacturer.”

In a statement accompanying the report’s release, Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., D-N.J. — the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s ranking member — said “TrumpRx is not a serious effort to lower prescription drug prices.”

“At best, the platform offers discount coupons that are readily available elsewhere,” Pallone added. “At worst, it appears to intentionally withhold information about more affordable generic alternatives and in some instances even charges consumers more than if they purchased the drug directly from the manufacturer.”

In a statement to Nextgov/FCW, White House spokesman Kush Desai said “instead of putting out idiotic reports to cope with the fact that President Trump has delivered meaningful prescription drug discounts for American patients, Democrats should spend their time working with Republicans to pass the Great Healthcare Plan and codify the President’s drug pricing deals for every American.”

Since September, Trump has struck MFN deals with more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies to provide discounted prescription drugs to Americans, although many of these companies have since raised their prices on select medications. The site currently still lists 43 discounted prescription medications — including weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic — although it says that “many more drugs are coming soon.”

The New York Times noted earlier this month that the discounted rates listed on TrumpRx are geared more towards Americans without health insurance, and that users can also go directly to the websites of some of the pharmaceutical companies that have reached MFN deals with the Trump administration to access the discounted prices. 

Some Senate Democrats have also criticized or downplayed the value of the platform, with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. — ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee — releasing a statement earlier this month that called the site “nothing more than a glorified coupon book.”