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big pharma
Senate Democrats Expose Trump's Latest 'Fraud' and Lay Out Plan to Reduce Drug Costs as Prices Surge
"When Big Pharma gets richer off the back of a grandmother struggling to pay for cancer medication, the system is broken."
Feb 04, 2026
Led by Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, four Democratic senators on Wednesday outlined plans to reduce the costs of prescription drugs after President Donald Trump claimed he would do so—only to allow Big Pharma companies to delay negotiating lower prices and secure "zero commitments" from top executives on making lifesaving medications more affordable for millions of Americans.
“There is no greater fraud than Donald J. Trump when it comes to lower drug prices,” Wyden (D-Ore.) said. “Our doors are wide open to anybody who wants to take the bold next step forward on lowering drug costs for Americans."
Along with a "flash report" on Trump's "broken promises" regarding his pledge to bring drug prices down “to levels nobody ever thought was possible," Wyden sent a Dear Colleague letter to Democratic senators regarding his committee's plans to follow through with lowering costs.
"Finance Committee minority staff will dedicate substantial time and effort this year to developing the next generation of healthcare solutions that lower costs for American families," Wyden wrote. "These solutions will rein in Big Pharma’s outrageous price increases, lower costs for consumers, guarantee predictability for patients, and reduce wasteful government spending that pads the profits of big corporations. Alongside the co-signers of this letter, I invite you to be a part of this bold vision."
The letter, co-signed by Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), notes that "the only concrete drug pricing policy Trump enacted within the past year was a price hike for the biggest blockbuster cancer drugs on Earth, giving an $8.8 billion windfall to the pharmaceutical industry."
In contrast, the senators wrote, the Senate Finance Committee will develop policies to incorporate international pricing models into the Medicare drug price negotiation framework, including by allowing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to consider international prices as a factor or penalize drugmakers when pricing for US customers exceeds international benchmarks.
“Democrats are determined to bring prices down, and we’re willing to work with anyone to find concrete ways to do it."
The committee will also work to end Republican "blockbuster drug bailouts from negotiation," like the ones included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that shielded several high-priced drugs—including the cancer drug Keytruda—from Medicare price negotiations.
"The Republican budget bill contained a nearly $9 billion sweetheart deal that benefits the biggest drug companies by delaying or exempting some lifesaving medications from negotiation," reads the Democrats' flash report.
Gallego said that "when Big Pharma gets richer off the back of a grandmother struggling to pay for cancer medication, the system is broken."
"That’s what this is all about: Big Pharma execs sitting in their fancy corner offices profiting off of sick, working-class Americans,” the senator said. “We are not going to accept an America where millions of families live in fear of getting sick and needing to fill a prescription. We are going to fight and fight hard for a healthcare system that does what Donald Trump never did: actually lower costs for working families.”
The lawmakers emphasized that even if manufacturers are forced to lower drug prices, patients are not currently guaranteed to directly benefit, because as much as 45% of the $5.4 trillion the US spends on healthcare annually is "absorbed by middlemen such as insurers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), and drug distributors."
"Healthcare middlemen profit when drug costs are high because they make money off of drug margin or payments that are linked to the price of a drug, ripping off patients who pay more than they should. Medicare Part D and the patients it serves should stop footing the bill for inflated drug prices and instead pay for drugs in a more transparent manner that reduces middleman margin," wrote the senators.
The Finance Committee will develop policies to eliminate abuses in the prescription drug supply chain including "egregious drug price markups," and to ensure that patient cost-sharing on drugs more closely aligns with the costs to plans and PBMs.
Finally, the Democrats said they would work to fix the "unmitigated disaster" that Trump and Kennedy have been "for innovation and drug development," as the administration has proposed slashing the National Institutes of Health budget by 40% and has cut off access to treatment for an estimated 74,000 patients who were enrolled in NIH clinical trials.
The Finance Committee, they said, plans to create new incentives for innovation and drug development, including through the tax code.
In their flash report, the Democrats wrote that while failing to force Big Pharma to the negotiating table to save money for Americans, Trump "has been parading Big Pharma executives through the White House, claiming to be cutting cost-saving deals with these corporations."
"One look under the hood reveals the truth: Trump is giving them a pass on tariffs, while receiving zero commitments about how they will lower costs for taxpayers and patients," they wrote. "Donald Trump is getting fleeced by Big Pharma CEOs, and Americans are going to foot the bill."
Welch said that the president "loves to talk a big game and make promises to working families about lowering prescription drug prices. But in reality, his administration is handling this like a PR problem: They’ve got to keep moving and talking about it, but then do nothing to really address the crisis."
“Democrats are determined to bring prices down, and we’re willing to work with anyone to find concrete ways to do it," said Welch. "We’re going to lower healthcare costs and ensure everyone can access affordable, lifesaving, and pain-relieving medication.”
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As Trump Claims He's Slashing Costs, Big Pharma Jacks Up Prices on 350 Drugs
One critic charged that Trump's earlier deals with pharmaceutical companies "just nibble around the margins in terms of what is really driving high prices for prescription drugs in the US."
Dec 31, 2025
President Donald Trump in recent months has made ludicrously false claims about his administration slashing prescription drug prices in the US by as much as 600%, which would entail pharmaceutical companies paying people to use their products.
In reality, reported Reuters on Wednesday, drugmakers are planning to raise prices on hundreds of drugs in 2026.
Citing data from healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors, Reuters wrote that at least 350 branded medications are set for price hikes next year, including "vaccines against COVID, RSV, and shingles," as well as the "blockbuster cancer treatment Ibrance."
The total projected number of drugs seeing price increases next year is significantly higher than in 2025, when 3 Axis Advisors estimated that pharmaceutical companies raised prices on 250 medications.
The median price increase for drugs next year is projected at 4%, roughly the same as in 2025.
Reuters also found that some of the companies raising prices on their drugs are the same ones who struck deals with Trump to lower the costs of a limited number of prescriptions earlier this year, including Novartis, Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, and GSK.
In announcing the deals with the pharmaceutical companies, Trump declared that "starting next year, American drug prices will come down fast and furious and will soon be the lowest in the developed world."
But Dr. Benjamin Rome, a health policy researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, told Reuters that the projected savings for Americans under the Trump deals are a drop in the bucket compared with the continued price hikes on other drugs.
"These deals are being announced as transformative when, in fact, they really just nibble around the margins in terms of what is really driving high prices for prescription drugs in the US," Rome explained.
Merith Basey, CEO of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, a patient advocacy organization focused exclusively on lowering the cost of medications, also said she was unimpressed by Trump's deals with drugmakers.
"Voluntary agreements with drug companies—especially when key details remain undisclosed—are no substitute for durable, system-wide reforms," she said earlier this month. "Patients are overwhelmingly calling on Congress to do more to lower prescription drug prices by holding Big Pharma accountable and addressing the root causes of high drug prices, because drugs don’t work if people can’t afford them."
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Trump's 9 New Prescription Drug Deals 'No Substitute' for Systemic Reform
"Patients are overwhelmingly calling on Congress to do more to lower prescription drug prices by holding Big Pharma accountable and addressing the root causes of high drug prices," said one campaigner.
Dec 19, 2025
"Starting next year, American drug prices will come down fast and furious and will soon be the lowest in the developed world," President Donald Trump claimed Friday as the White House announced agreements with nine pharmaceutical manufacturers.
The administration struck most favored nation (MFN) pricing deals with Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck, Novartis, and Sanofi. The president—who has launched the related TrumpRx.gov—previously reached agreements with AstraZeneca, EMD Serono, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Pfizer.
"The White House said it has made MFN deals with 14 of the 17 biggest drug manufacturers in the world," CBS News noted Friday. "The three drugmakers that were not part of the announcement are AbbVie, Johnson & Johnson, and Regeneron, but the president said that deals involving the remaining three could be announced at another time."
However, as Trump and congressional Republicans move to kick millions of Americans off of Medicaid and potentially leave millions more uninsured because they can't afford skyrocketing premiums for Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans, some critics suggested that the new drug deals with Big Pharma are far from enough.
"When 47% of Americans are concerned they won't be able to afford a healthcare cost next year, steps to reduce drug prices for patients are welcomed, especially by patients who rely on one of the overpriced essential medicines named in today's announcement," said Merith Basey, CEO of Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, in a statement.
"But voluntary agreements with drug companies—especially when key details remain undisclosed—are no substitute for durable, system-wide reforms," Basey stressed. "Patients are overwhelmingly calling on Congress to do more to lower prescription drug prices by holding Big Pharma accountable and addressing the root causes of high drug prices, because drugs don't work if people can't afford them."
As the New York Times reported Friday:
Drugs that will be made available in this way include Amgen's Repatha, for lowering cholesterol, at $239 a month; GSK's asthma inhaler, Advair Diskus, at $89 a month; and Merck's diabetes medication Januvia, at $100 a month.
Many of these drugs are nearing the end of their patent protection, meaning that the arrival of low-cost generic competition would soon have prompted manufacturers to lower their prices.
In other cases, the direct-buy offerings are very expensive and out of reach for most Americans.
For example, Gilead will offer Epclusa, a three-month regimen of pills that cures hepatitis C, for $2,492 a month on the site. Most patients pay far less using insurance or with help from patient assistance programs. Gilead says on its website that "typically a person taking Epclusa pays between $0 and $5 per month" with commercial insurance or Medicare.
While medication prices are a concern for Americans who face rising costs for everything from groceries to utility bills, the outcome of the ongoing battle on Capitol Hill over ACA tax credits—which are set to expire at the end of the year—is expected to determine how many people can even afford to buy health insurance for next year.
The ACA subsidies fight—which Republicans in the US House of Representatives ignored in the bill they passed this week before leaving Capitol Hill early—has renewed calls for transitioning the United States from its current for-profit healthcare system to Medicare for All.
"At the heart of our healthcare crisis is one simple truth: Corporations have too much power over our lives," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on social media Friday. "Medicare for All is how we take our power back and build a system that puts people over profits."
Jayapal reintroduced the Medicare for All Act in April with Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The senator said Friday that some of his top priorities in 2026 will be campaign finance reform, income and wealth inequality, the rapid deployment of artificial intelligence, and Medicare for All.
Earlier this month, another backer of that bill, US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), said: "We must stop tinkering around the edges of a broken healthcare system. Yes, let's extend the ACA tax credits to prevent a huge spike in healthcare costs for millions. Then, let's finally create a system that puts your health over corporate profits. We need Medicare for All."
It's not just progressives in Congress demanding that kind of transformation. According to Data for Progress polling results released late last month, 65% of likely US voters—including 78% of Democrats, 71% of Independents, and 49% of Republicans—either strongly or somewhat support "creating a national health insurance program, sometimes called 'Medicare for All.'"
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