“Trump announced the next in a long line of vanity projects: TrumpRX, a forthcoming, federally branded website where Pfizer sells steeply discounted drugs in exchange for a three-year exemption from his proposed 100 percent tariffs on imported pharmaceuticals. Imagine a strip mall furniture store with a permanent, flashy 70-percent-off sale, masking the fact that prices were inflated in the first place. TrumpRx, slated to launch in early 2026, is no different—a government-run platform that promises savings while hiding costs.
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TrumpRx isn’t healthcare reform or even a program in any real sense. It’s a carve-out for one company. Under the agreement, Pfizer will list a large share of its primary care and select specialty drugs at deep discounts on a federal site that redirects patients to Pfizer’s direct-to-consumer checkout.
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The savings are shaky because that money has to come from somewhere. Part of it, certainly, is just the market advantage of being exempted from a 100 percent tax that all your competitors are forced to pay. Any savings beyond that will be carved out of something else—less research, higher prices on other drugs, or hidden costs buried elsewhere in the system.
And for most people, the ‘discounts’ aren’t really discounts. Roughly 90 percent of Americans are insured, and their co-pays are almost always cheaper than TrumpRx’s cash prices. Medicaid patients already get the steepest rebates—more than 60 percent off by law—so TrumpRx adds little there. That leaves the approximately 27 million uninsured Americans.
But even for the uninsured, the math falls apart: A $6,000 arthritis drug at “half price” is still $3,000 in cash, a stretch on any budget. Eucrisa at $162 on TrumpRx beats few insurance copays. And $499/month for Wegovy (semaglutide) on TrumpRx compares poorly to the $25 many insured patients now pay. And all of this bypasses the way Americans actually get prescriptions. CVS, Walgreens, and the rest are cut out entirely, replaced by a federally branded coupon pop-up that punts you to a manufacturer’s checkout page. TrumpRx looks like a deal, but in practice, it helps almost no one.”
“President Donald Trump has struck a multi-pronged deal with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to lower the price of some of the company’s medicines, while clearing a path for the drugmaker to receive a three-year reprieve from certain tariffs.
The drugmaker will participate in a new direct purchasing platform named TrumpRx.gov that will let American patients buy a “large majority” of its primary care treatments and “some select specialty brands” at a discount. Those drugs will be offered at “savings that will range as high as 85% and on average 50%,” Pfizer said in a press release Tuesday.”
The big city libs want to fund rural hospitals in flyover country. Trump does not.
“President Donald Trump pressed Congress in July to pass his big tax and spending law, which slashed more than $1 trillion from health care programs and could lead to an estimated 11.8 million people losing their health insurance. It also included cuts to what’s known as the provider tax, which nearly all states use to increase Medicaid payments to hospitals, in part to help them fund services in rural communities where providing care may not otherwise be financially possible.
By one estimate, the law’s tax cuts could force more than 300 rural hospitals to close. In Erwin, Tennessee, it may mean Unicoi Hospital never reopens, leaving the county without any hospitals or emergency rooms.”
Existing economic theories are based on scarcity, but a lot of scarcity of key needs are imposed by powerful actors and are not an inherent part of the world. There’s enough food for everyone. There’s enough healthcare resources and home-builders to provide for everyone. But, these goods are based on profits and profits are best maximized not by providing for everyone, but by tailoring services to those with money.
“The sum of statistical lives saved vastly exceeds the number of actual lives.
Think of all the things that have saved your life. Every breath you take, every heartbeat, every car and lightning bolt that didn’t hit you. Yet, you’re only alive once. Even if we restrict ourselves to the effects of government programs, the total statistical lives saved by all programs is far greater than the population.
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Wyse and Meyer only show one side of the ledger—the reduction in mortality among people who gain Medicare eligibility. On the other side are the statistical lives lost from the people the money is taken from, or the programs cut.
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Counting statistical lives saved or lost is a debased currency, because it counts each actual life multiple times. And citing only the good side of the ledger makes it impossible to evaluate.
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after the Medicaid expansion, total expenditures increased by more than $1 trillion. That spending also costs statistical lives
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the money could have remained in taxpayers’ bank accounts, which also could promote good health. Mortality declines with income. Even if the Medicaid expansion were a cost-effective way to improve mortality, you have to consider the other side of the ledger.
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The lifesaving medical measures with the biggest impact, such as vaccinations and antibiotics, are relatively cheap. The Medicaid expansion may have relieved financial stress and made the program’s beneficiaries more physically comfortable, which are better criteria for evaluating its impact.
Now consider the 2013 NEJM study trumpeted by conservatives, which examined various health measures. It found that Medicaid enrollment resulted in large and statistically significant improvements in patients’ subjective estimates of their health and quality of life, as well as significant reductions in their financial stress. But it did not find a statistically significant impact on mortality.
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The two studies are more valuable in combination than individually. The NEJM study had the advantage of random assignment and detailed individual data. The NBER paper had a much larger sample size and time interval. Both found significant benefits to Medicaid recipients, although they did not establish that these benefits were any greater than could have been obtained by simply giving each recipient several thousand dollars per year. Neither study convincingly answered whether Medicaid improved health or saved statistical lives.”
Work requirements on Medicaid will rob many people of health insurance because many will fail to do the burdensome paperwork to prove they are working.
Doctor has seen people die from preventable ailments because the people couldn’t afford to get care.
“Tillis — who voted against the bill in a key procedural vote Saturday night and announced Sunday he would not run for reelection — delivered a scathing rebuke of the president’s agenda-setting bill in a Senate floor speech, explaining his position and pledging to withhold his vote unless his concerns about drastic cuts to Medicaid are addressed.
“What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore, guys? I think the people in the White House … advising the president are not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise,” Tillis said in his floor speech.”
The Republican claim that their bill’s Medicaid cuts won’t take away people’s health insurance because people will get employer health insurance is either spoken out of dishonesty or ignorance. Many people on Medicaid will not be able to get a full time job that supplies benefits like health insurance. They will be paid little and not receive health insurance. Medicaid expansion has not shown to increase unemployment.