President Donald Trump on Thursday rolled out the broad outline of a health-care plan that the White House claims will lower drug prices and insurance premiums.
The announcement came as a congressional effort to extend key Affordable Care Act tax credits faces headwinds from Senate Republicans, leaving millions at risk of seeing their health insurance premiums spike.
The Trump administration dubbed the initiative “The Great Healthcare Plan,” the president said in a video unveiling the policy Thursday morning.
“I’m calling on Congress to pass this framework into law without delay,” Trump said. “Have to do it right now.”
The plan would codify the deals Trump recently struck with major drugmakers to slash the cost of certain prescription drugs in the U.S. by pegging them to lower prices abroad, as part of his “most-favored-nation” policy.
More than a dozen pharmaceutical companies agreed to lower prices on certain products for Medicaid patients in exchange for a three-year exemption from tariffs.
As part of those deals, companies also agreed to sell some medicines at a discount on Trump’s direct-to-consumer platform, Trump Rx.
Trump, in his video announcement, said those lower drug prices will take effect on the platform when it launches this month. He claimed that those prices would plunge by as much as 500%, even though that would mean prices would fall far below $0.
The health-care framework would “make more verified safe pharmaceutical drugs available for over-the-counter purchase,” according to a White House fact sheet.
It would also purportedly send money for health insurance coverage “directly to the American people” instead of giving “big insurance companies billions in extra taxpayer-funded subsidy payments,” the fact sheet says. Trump has repeatedly floated similar proposals in recent remarks.
The plan would additionally “fund a cost-sharing reduction program,” which the administration says would “reduce the most common Obamacare plan premiums by over 10%.”
Other components of the policy include requiring health insurers to prominently post coverage comparisons “in plain English” on their websites, along with other information about overhead costs and claim denial rates.
It would also require providers who accept either Medicare or Medicaid “to publicly and prominently post their pricing and fees to avoid surprise medical bills.”
The new proposal from the White House comes as senators remain at loggerheads on a deal to extend the now-lapsed ACA subsidies. A bipartisan group of senators has been working for weeks on a way forward, but hit a snag recently on language relating to the Hyde Amendment, a statute that bars the use of federal funds for abortion services.
The White House plan notably leaves out an extension of the ACA subsidies, which Democrats are demanding be extended as a part of any health-care deal. The White House had not publicly put forward a proposal until Thursday, but Trump has repeatedly said he wants funds to go directly to patients rather than insurance companies.
Some negotiators wondered whether the White House plan would hamper negotiations.
“We’ve all known that in order to be able to advance something, we’re going to have to have buy-in from the White House,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, one of the negotiators, told reporters on Thursday. “Does this set things back if he signals that he does not support extending [the subsidies]? I mean, that’s the basis of our plan here.”
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who is leading talks on the Democratic side, said on Thursday that she hadn’t yet seen the Trump plan, but signaled optimism about the discussions.
“Most of the areas have agreement, so what we need to do is get bill text together and then get final sign off so that we can talk to our colleagues about what we’re proposing,” Shaheen told reporters.
A White House official on Thursday said the plan does not close the door on extending the subsidies, but lays out the president’s preferences.
“This does not specifically address those bipartisan congressional negotiations that are going on,” the White House official said. “It does say that we have a preference that money goes to people, as opposed to insurance companies.”
