Trump Just Made Rx Drugs More Expensive On Top of Damage Rep. Tom Kean Has Already Done

Washington D.C. – While nearly 60 percent of Americans are worried about affording prescription drugs, Donald Trump has decided to hike costs even more on millions of seniors. On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced it’s killing a Biden-era program that over the last two years has “saved seniors hundreds of dollars more a year for their drug plans”under Medicare Part D.

Trump’s rollback that sets up beneficiaries for “higher Medicare drug premiums next year”follows the big pharma profit protection measures Republicans like U.S. Rep.Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ-7) passed last year in the Big Ugly Bill. The GOP law explicitly carved out a special loophole for big drug companies to escape Medicare price negotiations for many of seniors’ most expensive medications, including those that treat cancer and hypertension.

“Donald Trump and his Congressional accomplices like Tom Kean seem to think seniors are not paying high enough prices for their prescriptions to the liking of the GOP’s big pharma donors,” said Brad Woodhouse, President of Save My Care. “Why else would Republicans keep scrapping programs that lower drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries and keep rigging the system in favor of the pharmaceutical industry that’s already banking huge profits. And they can’t hide behind the sham TrumpRx program that’s not just failing to bring down costs, but pushing patients to more expensive options in many cases. Millions of seniors are having a hard enough time scraping by with costs of living way up from the year before, and now have to worry about higher drug premiums next year. Why? Because Trump and Rep. Kean think it’s more important to keep giving tax breaks to billionaires and bailouts to big pharma than helping seniors stay afloat in the GOP-made affordability crisis.”