U.S. News: Trump's Healthcare Framework Takes Aim At Costs

 

“WASHINGTON -- President Trump is urging Congress to make healthcare a priority this year, endorsing a series of proposals that come as his party faces mounting political pressure over rising costs ahead of the midterm elections.

 

The White House released a healthcare framework Thursday, called "The Great Healthcare Plan," which seeks to lower prescription drug prices, increase price transparency and redirect federal subsidies from insurers to consumers.

 

Passing the proposal into law is expected to be a tall order for a gridlocked Washington that has struggled for months to agree on a healthcare compromise aimed at easing higher premiums and other costs for millions of Americans.

 

The plan brings together ideas that have been pitched by several lawmakers and asks Congress to codify executive actions designed to bring U.S. drug prices in line with the lowest level paid by other rich countries.

 

The plan wouldn't replace the Affordable Care Act, which many Republicans campaigned on repealing. White House officials said the measures would give more power to consumers if all the proposals were passed.

 

The framework is light on details and doesn't endorse specific bills or give a timeline for when Trump wants it passed. But it does seek to codify many of the actions Trump has taken on addressing healthcare costs. The proposal doesn't endorse extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which expired in December.

 

Rather than paying insurers through the subsidies, Trump's plan would instead deposit those funds directly into a savings account, similar to a Health Savings Account, and implement a cost-sharing reduction program.

 

"Instead of putting the needs of big corporations and special interests first, our plan finally puts you first and puts more money in your pocket," Trump said in a video posted on the White House's social-media accounts.

 

The plan calls for price transparency, urging "any healthcare provider or insurer who accepts Medicare or Medicaid to prominently post their pricing and fees." Price transparency bills in Congress have support from Republicans and Democrats.

 

"Consumers know how to shop and know how to make sure their bills are accurate to what they agreed on up front," said Cynthia Fisher, founder of PatientRightsAdvocate.org, a nonprofit organization seeking healthcare price transparency.

 

Trump's plan seeks to "end kickbacks from pharmacy-benefit managers to the large brokerage middlemen" to lower costs. Lawmakers from both parties have criticized pharmacy-benefit managers, which usually play a key role in getting prescriptions filled and reimbursed, for what the administration says is anticompetitive tactics that keep drug prices artificially high.

 

The Trump administration has negotiated with major drugmakers in an attempt to lower U.S. drug costs with a policy known as "most favored nation" pricing. Pfizer, AstraZeneca and EMD Serono, along with other companies, have announced deals with the administration. The drugs are expected to be sold through a website known as TrumpRx later this year.

 

Lawmakers have struggled to come up with a compromise to extend the subsidies, which were passed during the pandemic and helped more than 20 million people. House Democrats, joined by 17 Republicans, passed a three-year extension of the subsidies earlier this month.

 

But that legislation has been dead on arrival in the Senate, where a bipartisan group is locked in negotiations over an alternative that would extend the subsidies for two years.” [1]

 

1. U.S. News: Trump's Healthcare Framework Takes Aim At Costs. Andrews, Natalie; Siddiqui, Sabrina.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 16 Jan 2026: A3.