President Donald Trump on Thursday unveiled a sweeping health insurance plan that the White House says will lower drug prices and premiums.
The announcement comes as Congressional efforts to extend key tax credits in the Affordable Care Act face headwinds from Senate Republicans, putting millions at risk of seeing health insurance premiums skyrocket.
The Trump administration is calling the initiative the “Great Health Care Plan,” the president said in a video announcing the policy Thursday morning.
“I urge Congress to pass this framework without delay,” President Trump said. “We have to do it now.”
The plan codifies President Trump’s recent agreements with major drug companies to reduce the cost of certain prescription drugs in the United States by locking in lower prices overseas as part of his “most-favored-nation policy.”
More than a dozen drug companies have agreed to lower prices on certain products for Medicaid patients in exchange for three years of tariff exemptions.
As part of these deals, the companies also agreed to sell some drugs at discounted prices on President Trump’s direct-to-consumer platform, Trump Rx.
President Trump said in a video announcement that these drug price reductions will take effect when the platform launches this month. He claimed that these prices could drop by up to 500%, even if that meant prices falling well below $0.
According to a White House fact sheet, the medical framework will “enable more tested and safer medicines to be purchased over the counter.”
It would also send health insurance coverage money “directly to Americans,” rather than giving “billions of dollars in additional taxpayer-funded subsidies to major insurance companies,” the fact sheet said. President Trump has reiterated similar proposals in recent remarks.
The plan would also “fund cost-sharing reduction programs,” which the administration says would “reduce premiums for the most popular Obamacare plans by more than 10 percent.”
Other elements of the policy include requiring health insurance companies 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 health care providers that accept either Medicare or Medicaid to “publicly and prominently post their pricing and fees to avoid unexpected medical bills.”
The new proposal from the White House comes as senators remain at odds over a deal to extend expired ACA subsidies. A bipartisan group of senators has been working toward progress for weeks, but recently stalled on language related to the Hyde Amendment, a law that prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion services.
Notably, the White House’s plan does not include an extension of ACA subsidies, which Democrats are seeking as part of the health care deal. The White House had not made the proposal public until Thursday, but President Trump has repeatedly said he wants the funds to go directly to patients, not insurance companies.
Some negotiators feared the White House’s plan could derail negotiations.
“We all know that for anything to move forward, you need buy-in from the White House,” one of the negotiators, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), told reporters Thursday. “If he says he doesn’t support extending the (subsidy), will things go backwards? So that’s the basis of our plan.”
Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who is leading the talks, said Thursday that she had not seen Trump’s plan yet, but signaled optimism about the talks.
“There is agreement on most areas, so all we have to do is finalize the text of the bill and get final approval so that we can discuss with our colleagues what we are proposing,” Shaheen told reporters.
White House officials said Thursday that the plan does not close the door on extending the aid, but rather clarifies the president’s intentions.
“This is not a specific reference to ongoing bipartisan Congressional negotiations,” a White House official said. “I would say we are prioritizing money going to people, not insurance companies.”
