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"Medicare drug price negotiation is about to deliver tangible lower costs to seniors in Medicare, unlike Trump’s ceremonial events with Big Pharma CEOs in the Oval Office," said one Democratic senator.
The Trump administration on Tuesday announced newly negotiated prices for more than a dozen prescription drugs covered by Medicare, an achievement made possible by a Biden-era law that has faced relentless attacks from the pharmaceutical industry, GOP lawmakers, and the Republican president.
The announcement marks the end of the second round of Medicare drug price negotiations required under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a measure passed in 2022 without the support of a single Republican in Congress. Last year, House GOP leaders said the law was "disastrous" and decried what they called "the mandate from bureaucrats to artificially set prescription drug prices."
The new list contains 15 drugs, including the diabetes and weight loss medication Ozempic, the breast cancer drug Ibrance, and the prostate cancer drug Xtandi. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) estimated that if the new prices—which take effect in 2027—had been in effect last year, Medicare would have saved $12 billion.
President Donald Trump campaigned on rolling back the IRA, which for the first time allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies. Since taking office, Trump has taken steps to weaken the law, including by signing a measure that will exempt certain high-priced drugs from Medicare negotiations—a multibillion-dollar handout to Big Pharma.
But in statements on Tuesday, Trump-appointed officials hailed the newly negotiated prices. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, said the negotiation results stemmed from a Trump directive to "stop at nothing to lower healthcare costs for the American people."
CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz declared that the second round of negotiations was more successful than the first, which was held under the Biden administration. Experts said that claim is specious at best.
Democratic lawmakers were quick to highlight Republican opposition to the IRA, and continued attacks on the law, in response to the newly negotiated prices.
"Democrats took on Big Pharma by giving Medicare the power to negotiate on behalf of the tens of millions of seniors that want lower drug prices while every Republican voted against it,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. “Today’s announcement is a result of that effort by Democrats to lower health costs for older Americans."
"Medicare drug price negotiation is about to deliver tangible lower costs to seniors in Medicare, unlike Trump’s ceremonial events with Big Pharma CEOs in the Oval Office," Wyden added. "Republicans neutered future Medicare drug price negotiations by adding delays and exemptions to some of the most expensive drugs, especially cancer drugs like Keytruda."
Tuesday's announcement came less than a week after the pharmaceutical industry suffered its 16th defeat in court as it continues its legal campaign against the Medicare price negotiations. The industry is also lobbying aggressively in support of legislation that would further weaken the IRA price-negotiation provisions.
"Drug corporations already secured a $9 billion giveaway from President Trump and congressional Republicans paid for by taxpayers and cancer patients through the Big Ugly Bill, and they are trying to go even further to delay and exempt price negotiations for more blockbuster drugs," said Steve Knievel, access to medicines advocate at Public Citizen.
"Policymakers must reject these efforts to undermine Medicare drug price negotiations," Knievel added. "Instead they should build on the program’s success by providing everyone access to negotiated prices, negotiating lower prices for more drugs sooner, and ensuring drug corporations can no longer rip us off by charging the highest prices in the world for medications."
Lobbyists working to pass Pharma-backed legislation currently outnumber lobbyists working to oppose it by more than 20-to-1, estimates Public Citizen.
Government watchdog Public Citizen is warning that the pharmaceutical industry is preparing an all-out blitz aimed at sabotaging government efforts to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs.
In a report released on Wednesday, Public Citizen said it found that the major pharmaceutical companies this year have hired more than 500 lobbyists to push for the passage of three pieces of legislation that would undermine the provisions allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices contained in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
The first piece, called the ORPHAN Cures Act, was passed by Congress in July after being stuffed into the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. According to Public Citizen, the law will "delay and exempt some of the most profitable drugs—including cancer treatments—from negotiations, representing tens of billions in annual Medicare spending."
The other two pieces of legislation—the EPIC Act and the MINI Act—have not yet been passed, and Public Citizen says that they "would lengthen the already long delay period before small molecule drugs are eligible for negotiation—effectively excluding many medicines from negotiations entirely or shortening the period patients have access to lower negotiated prices to only one or two years."
Public Citizen estimates that there are currently 501 lobbyists who are pushing to pass these laws, while just 24 lobbyists are working to block their passage. In total, notes Public Citizen, this means opponents of the legislation are outnumbered by a ratio of more than 20-to-1.
Steve Knievel, Public Citizen's access to medicines advocate, called on elected representatives to "reject the demands of pharma lobbyists and instead work to make prescription drugs more affordable" for their constituents.
"Instead of handing drug corporations billions of dollars by helping them evade price negotiations," Knievel said, "Congress should pass legislation to empower Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices on all costly medicines and allow all patients to access lower, negotiated prices, even if they don’t have Medicare."
"Donald Trump and Republicans are selling out America's seniors," said one advocate.
A major pharmaceutical industry handout that Republicans—with the support of one Senate Democrat—included in President Donald Trump's signature legislative package is expected to cost US taxpayers nearly twice as much as originally expected, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in an updated analysis released Monday.
The CBO initially projected that the provision, known as the ORPHAN Cures Act, would cost around $5 billion over the next decade. But the office said Monday that its earlier assessment did not take into account several major, high-priced drugs that will be exempted from Medicare price negotiations as a result of the Trump-GOP law.
The budget office said it now expects the provision of Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act to cost $8.8 billion over the next 10 years.
Among the drugs included in the new CBO analysis is Keytruda, a cancer medication sold by Merck that carries a list price of $24,062 every six weeks. The Trump GOP-budget law delays Keytruda's eligibility for Medicare price negotiations by at least a year, postponing significant potential savings for taxpayers and patients.
Merith Basey, executive director of Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, said in response to the updated CBO analysis that "the ORPHAN Cures Act is a wildly expensive handout to Big Pharma that will harm patients, drain taxpayer dollars, and weaken the government's ability to rein in high drug prices."
Basey noted that the "insatiable" pharmaceutical industry is not satisfied with the enactment of the ORPHAN Cures Act, which restricts Medicare price negotiations for drugs that treat more than one rare disease. Big Pharma, Basey said, is "spending record sums this year to advance additional carveouts like the EPIC Act, which would exempt even more blockbuster drugs from negotiation."
"Any support for these bills goes against the will of the 90% of Americans who want Congress to go further to lower drug prices—not facilitate another handout to Big Pharma," said Basey.
"This isn't about helping lower costs—it's about doing the bidding of big drug companies, and Trump and the GOP are all too happy to oblige."
The deep-pocketed pharmaceutical industry has waged war on the popular Medicare price negotiation program since its inception during the Biden administration.
While pharmaceutical giants' efforts to gut the program have been stymied in court, the industry-friendly Trump administration and Republican lawmakers have done pharma's bidding through legislation and executive action. Earlier this year, as Common Dreams reported, Trump signed an executive order aimed at delaying price negotiations for a broad category of medications despite the president's repeated promises to bring down costs.
"Trump and Republicans are selling out America's seniors," said Brad Woodhouse, president of the advocacy group Protect Our Care. "Instead of letting Medicare negotiate lower prices for more drugs, they carved out a loophole to protect the industry's most profitable drugs."
"Not only does the GOP tax bill throw over 15 million Americans off their healthcare and hike costs for millions more, but it also forces older Americans to pay more for life-saving medicines while CEOs and billionaires line their pockets with more money than they know what to do with," Woodhouse continued. "This isn't about helping lower costs—it's about doing the bidding of big drug companies, and Trump and the GOP are all too happy to oblige."
Steve Knievel, access to medicines advocate at Public Citizen, said Monday that "instead of transferring $10 billion from taxpayers and cancer patients to drug corporations that are already extremely profitable, President Trump and members of Congress must work to strengthen and expand Medicare drug price negotiations."
"Instead of gutting the law through bills like the ORPHAN Cures Act, EPIC Act, and MINI Act so Big Pharma can block negotiations on blockbuster treatments," Knievel added, "Congress should pass legislation to empower Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices on all costly medicines and allow all patients to access lower, negotiated prices, even if they don't have Medicare."