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Are the Trump administration's efforts to lower drug costs working? 87%
5/8/2026, 12:31:41 AM
BS Summary: This video contains 25 faulty reasoning types, including Hasty Generalization, Ambiguity (Equivocation), and Burden of Proof, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 39.6% saturation with 175 hits. Analysis detected 1,374 faulty-reasoning hits from 442 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 80% and a BS Rank of 87% (2,314 of 16,813 videos). This video is worse (more manipulative) than 86.20% of the video peer group.
President Trump has made cutting drug prices a centerpiece of his second term.
He's announced deals with major drug companies and launched a new website called Trump RX where cash paying patients could find discounted medicine.
But new analysis finds the reality is more complicated.
CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Selene Gounder joins us now. She's also editor at large for public health at KFF
Health News. So Dr. Gounder, what did this analysis find? The biggest proven savings so far actually come from something that started under President Biden under the inflation reduction act.
So Medicare began negotiating prices directly with drug companies for the first time. 10 drugs were negotiated and those discounts are saving the Medicare program and patients real money.
Well over 20 billion a year. So that's historic.
But most of the newer Trump initiatives, so the Trump RX website, which is basically a coupon aggregation website, the one-on-one deals with pharma CEOs, those help a much smaller group of people, mostly uninsured patients who are paying cash.
And many of the drugs listed on Trump RX are actually available cheaper through existing discount programs.
>> So essentially, is Trump RX just just kind of an aggregator then?
>> Yeah, it's basically a coupon aggregator. compiles manufacturer discounts and directs patients to those.
That can lower what you pay at the pharmacy counter, but it does not lower what the drugs actually cost.
Coupons let drug companies offer discounts to some patients without cutting the official list price.
So, if the list price stays the same, that's what price stays the same, that's what insurance companies have to pay.
So, your drug might feel like uh $10 to you at the counter, but might still cost your insurance company $400 a month.
And those costs get passed down to consumers over time because they end up driving up driving up insurance premiums for everyone.
>> So, what should people take away from all this?
>> So, if you're on Medicare, the negotiated drug discounts are real and that's a meaningful change. But for everyone else, you have to comparison shop across Trump RX, Good RX, Cost Plus Drugs, and your insurance plan, your local retail pharmacy, your mail order pharmacy to get the best deal.
And if you have insurance, be careful with coupons because that payment may not count towards your deductible.
The count towards your deductible. The bigger issue is that the things driving high cost.
So, uh, patent strategies that block generics, pharmacy middlemen, rising list prices, those things have not changed.
>> Dr.
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