President Donald Trump has for months pledged to tackle rising health care costs with a new government-backed online source for prescription drugs bearing his name. But is the eponymously-branded website everything he promised?
The long-awaited project, dubbed “TrumpRx,” went live on Thursday, with Trump claiming that it “represents the largest reduction in prescription drug prices in history by many, many times, and it’s not even close” alongside Medicare administrator (and ex-TV doctor) Mehmet Oz and AirBnb founder turned U.S. Chief Design Officer Joe Gebbia.
Much of what the portal offers is focused on weight-loss-enabling GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro — or as Trump likes to call them, ‘the fat drugs.”
Trump was followed by Oz — who traded a career as a celebrated cardio-thoracic surgeon for one as a medical show host and product pitchman before making an ill-fated turn into GOP politics as a candidate for the Pennsylvania senate seat currently held by John Fetterman. Oz returned to his medical showman roots while talking up the “discounted, steeply discounted prices” available on the TrumpRx site before Gebbia took over the ‘As Seen On TV’-like pitch to show how the site worked.
It was a made-for-television launch that was equal parts presidential address and late-night infomercial.
But wait, there’s more!
Another reason why Americans who watch significant amounts of television may have seen something eerily familiar in what Gebbia demonstrated: Instead of the direct-to-consumer portal teased by the president and his aides since last summer, the former exec explained how the TrumpRx site permitted users to search for particular drugs to see if manufacturer coupons were offered, then add any such coupons to their phones before taking the coupons to their local pharmacist.
“Americans for the first time, are getting the lowest cost price drugs like the rest of the world is,” Gebbia said.
Yet despite the former tech executive’s boasts, Thursday’s launch was not the first time Americans could get access to a coupon that promises lower prices after checking on a centralized website.
In fact, anyone who spends any amount of time watching linear television is bombarded with advertisements touting similar websites such as GoodRx or SingleCare — with the latter employing former fictional president Martin Sheen (The West Wing’s Josiah Bartlett) as a pitchman.
And what’s more, those non-government sites offer far more medications than the TrumpRx site does — in addition to the same prices for the medications currently offered on the administration’s website.
For example, the TrumpRx website says consumers can purchase a two-month supply of Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1 injection, Wegovy, for $199 per month at the two lowest-available doses.
That’s the same price offered through Novo Nordisk’s own “Novocare” website, and through GoodRx — because (according to a press release) the TrumpRx website is actually a rebranded version of GoodRx pursuant to an agreement under which GoodRx will serve as a “core integration partner” for TrumpRx.
Moreover, those prices touted by Trump, Oz and Gebbia on Thursday aren’t set in stone. That $199 rate is only possible because Novo Nordisk is offering a discount — and that discount expires at the end of next month.
