‘Taxpayers deserve to know’: Experts applaud Trump’s drug price transparency expansion

By Tate Rosentreter
The Center Square

Patients’ rights groups are praising President Donald Trump’s announcement of drug price transparency expansion as the first step toward price transparency in healthcare, stating that taxpayers deserve to know where their money is going.

Founder and chairman of PatientsRightsAdvocate.org (PRA) Cynthia Fisher told The Center Square: “We applaud President Trump, Secretaries Kennedy and Oz, Mark Cuban, and all those involved for expanding consumer choice in prescription drug pricing, which is a critical first step toward true price transparency in healthcare.”

“Prescription medications account for nearly 15% of healthcare spending for American families, which is why President Trump’s broader healthcare agenda also targets hospital and insurance pricing,” Fisher said.

“Full transparency across prescription drugs, hospital services, and insurance pricing will promote competition, empower consumers and employers, and help prevent the overcharges that drive up healthcare costs for working families and businesses alike,” Fisher said.

Fisher additionally stated that “transparent models like Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs have demonstrated how openness and competition can directly lower costs and expand access.”

“President Trump’s policies have laid the foundation for enforcing transparency reforms that not only have the potential to transform the American healthcare system for generations to come, but also create an opportunity to go much further in reducing costs and restoring accountability across the entire healthcare marketplace,” Fisher said.

Meanwhile, former director of the Domestic Policy Council Andrew Bremberg noted that “Americans are tired of hidden prices, surprise bills, and unexplained costs.”

“They want accountability,” Bremberg said.

“And unlike many healthcare debates, this is not fundamentally about ideology,” Bremberg said. “It is about whether patients, employers, and taxpayers deserve to know where their money is going.”

“Maximum price transparency enforcement is the fastest way to empower Americans and make healthcare affordable again, and the Trump Administration can get it done,” Bremberg said.

As The Center Square reported last week, Trump announced that TrumpRx would be “expanding to about seven times its current size” by “adding more than 600 generic prescription drugs” to its website.

The president called for “unprecedented price transparency” at the healthcare affordability event where TrumpRx’s expansion was announced.

The Trump administration made a commitment to healthcare price transparency earlier this year, The Center Square reported.

Trump’s statements come shortly after a Pew Research Center report showed that “73% of adults now say the affordability of health care is a very big problem for the country.”

TrumpRx is a discounted drug government website where Americans can purchase “drugs in cash” outside of their insurance for the “lowest prices on prescription medications in the developed world,” according to the TrumpRx website.