Americans are furious about drug prices. The Trump administration\u2019s answer? A new website.<\/p>\n
But more than a month after its launch<\/a>, the site, TrumpRx.gov, remains small \u2014 offering discounts on just 54 prescription drugs. Many of those drugs already have cheaper generic versions or savings programs available elsewhere, and the discounts can\u2019t be used with insurance or count toward a deductible. Awareness of the site remains limited.<\/p>\n Whether TrumpRx actually lowers drug prices matters in ways that go beyond the success of the website itself. For President Donald Trump, it\u2019s tied to a broader push on health care costs<\/a> as the midterms approach. But for many Americans, the issue taps into something deeper <\/a>\u2014 years of frustration with a system they say feels stacked against them, where prices are hard to track and it\u2019s not always clear if they\u2019re getting a fair deal.<\/p>\n Health policy experts say that what the administration does next will determine whether TrumpRx remains just another option<\/a> or evolves into something that actually helps make prescription drug costs easier to navigate. <\/p>\n \u201cThe idea isn\u2019t exactly new, but it does have sort of that Trump branding,\u201d said Audrey Kearney, a senior survey analyst at KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group. \u201cIt\u2019s another option for consumers, and we\u2019ll kind of have to stay tuned to see if it\u2019ll make a real difference.\u201d<\/p>\n Kearney co-authored a survey<\/a> published last week by KFF that found that about a third of people who take prescription drugs said they had heard at least something about TrumpRx. Just 7% said they had visited the site to compare prices, rising to about 16% among people who take GLP-1 medications.<\/p>\n Even the White House acknowledges the website is still in its early days. A White House official declined to say how many people have visited the site or how many drugs will be added this month.<\/p>\n The official said IVF treatments and GLP-1 weight loss drugs<\/a> have been among the most searched medications so far. The administration plans to add \u201ca larger batch\u201d of drugs to the platform soon, the official said, and hopes to work with Congress to codify some of the drug pricing deals into law as part of a broader health care plan.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t see this as the end product,\u201d the official said. \u201cThe goal here is to pass the president\u2019s Great Healthcare Plan to codify these [Most Favored Nation] deals, so if people use insurance to buy these drugs, they can also access the savings.\u201d<\/p>\n There are no indications that Congress is taking up the legislation.<\/p>\n What could TrumpRx do differently?<\/p>\n