President Donald Trump called TrumpRx, the White House’s new prescription drug portal, “one of the most transformative health care initiatives of all time,” offering dozens of popular drugs at “dramatic discounts” for consumers. 

Experts say the truth is more nuanced. While consumers may find good deals on a small number of medications at TrumpRx.gov, in many cases they’ll get better deals by turning to generic alternatives. 

And patients who have insurance — an estimated 92% of people in the US — aren’t likely to gain any benefit from shopping on the site. 

“It's one tenth of what he claims it is,” said Geoffrey Joyce, PhD, director of Health Policy at the University of Southern California Schaeffer Center and chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics at the USC Mann School. Still, “it's not bad for certain people who use certain drugs.”

Here are five things to know about TrumpRx:

1. It’s a Portal, Not a Full Pharmacy

TrumpRx currently lists 43 medications, including two different types of the weight-loss drug Wegovy (semaglutide). However, the site doesn’t sell drugs directly to patients. Instead, it refers patients to pharmaceutical company websites offering coupons.

Coupons for drugs aren’t new, and some of the TrumpRx prices aren’t either. 

“Many of the deals on these products were already available and just repackaged onto the TrumpRx website,” said Anna Kaltenboeck, MBA, a health economist and president of Verdant Research in New York City.

TrumpRx works similarly to GoodRx.com, which compares medication prices at different drugstores and provides links to coupons that patients can take to drugstores. In fact, GoodRx.com told ABC News that it “integrates” prices into TrumpRx. No further details were provided about how the arrangement works. 

Patients who rely on government-funded programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Affairs, and TRICARE are ineligible for at least some manufacturer coupons, however. 

Tips for Clinicians

Mariana Socal, MD, PhD, associate professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, pointed out that insured patients actually may be worse off using TrumpRx because purchases won't count toward their deductible. “Patients with insurance may be asked to pay multiple times: for their premium, for their deductibles, and for the drug acquired fully out of pocket through TrumpRx,” she said.

She recommends that clinicians “help patients check if there are cheaper therapeutic alternatives” before sending anyone to TrumpRx. She also suggested checking whether the same drug can be obtained at lower cost “using coupons, savings cards, or patient assistance programs offered by the same drug manufacturers.”

Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs, for example, specializes in lower-cost generic drugs and provides transparency regarding how prices are calculated. 

And, she said, “clinicians can help patients understand that if they have insurance, they must consider not only the drug's cost-share, but also the impact on their deductible and future cost-sharing for other drugs.”

Clinicians also should be aware that patients may get their medications from multiple sources, posing risks. 

“There's less visibility on all of the prescriptions that a person might be filling, which potentially increases the risk of adverse side effects from people taking multiple prescriptions that maybe shouldn't be being taken at the same time or duplicate prescribing,” said Juliette Cubanski, PhD, deputy director of the Program on Medicare Policy at health policy think tank Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). 

Socal raised a separate concern: privacy. When patients fill prescriptions at a traditional pharmacy, she noted, the pharmacy must comply with HIPAA. "However, drug manufacturers are not HIPAA-covered entities, and it remains unclear how manufacturers selling drugs directly to consumers may or may not use the patient information that they collect.”

2. Many TrumpRx Drugs Have Generic Alternatives

According to Kaltenboeck, 20 TrumpRx brand-name drugs have generic alternatives, such as the smoking-cessation aid varenicline (Chantix), the antifungal fluconazole (Diflucan), the inexpensive corticosteroid methylprednisolone (Medrol), and the estrogen replacement drug known as conjugated estrogens (Premarin).

The news site Axios noted that the Pfizer antidepressant desvenlafaxine (Pristiq) sells for about $200 for a month’s supply via TrumpRx compared to as little as $16.65 for the generic version. 

A Medscape Medical News check found that the smoking-cessation drug Chantix, the brand-name version of varenicline, is listed on TrumpRx at $106.20 for 60 doses of the 0.5-mg tablet. Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs lists the same dosage of a generic version at $14.46 for a 60-count supply.

"You shouldn't be promoting discounted branded drugs when there are cheaper generics on the market,” USC’s Joyce said. “That was somewhat disingenuous. I think they didn't want to have 20 drugs [listed]. They wanted to have 43.”

In addition to drugs on TrumpRx with generic alternatives, Kaltenboeck noted that Nicotrol NS, a smoking-cessation drug, has over-the-counter equivalents with the same active ingredient (nicotine). And she pointed out that the diabetes drug dapagliflozin (Farxiga) has an “authorized generic,” which means it’s produced by the same manufacturer. 

3. Patients With Insurance Should Be Cautious…

TrumpRx users must pay cash. The site doesn’t work with insurance companies, Medicare, or Medicaid. 

“You're limited to paying entirely out of your own pocket,” KFF’s Cubanski said. “For people with insurance, you're likely going to be better off using your insurance than TrumpRx.”

The TrumpRx site itself notes in drug listings that “this is an out-of-pocket price. If you have insurance, check your co-pay first—it may be even lower.”

4. …But Some Insured People May Benefit

There is a unique wrinkle for patients on high-deductible plans. Cubanski noted that if a patient doesn't expect to spend through their deductible during the year, TrumpRx could potentially save them money on a listed medication.

But for those who do typically hit their deductible, using TrumpRx means money spent on medications won’t help patients reach the limit they must spend before they’re covered. “There are trade-offs,” she said. “People with insurance just need to understand their potential cost exposure using their insurance vs going outside of their insurance.”

5. TrumpRx Includes Weight-Loss and Fertility Drugs

USC’s Joyce noted that few of the drugs listed on TrumpRx are among the most commonly used medications. Still, experts said TrumpRx holds promise for uninsured patients without cheaper alternatives or those whose insurance doesn't cover their medications, particularly GLP-1 weight-loss drugs and fertility treatments.

“Those drugs typically are not well covered by insurance,” Joyce said. As he noted, Trump made a point of complaining about the price of IVF treatment during the 2024 election, “so this is him trying to fulfill a campaign promise.”

Cubanski cautioned that patients need to read the fine print on weight-loss medications: “The very low prices that are offered are usually just for the initial fill, but not for the maintenance doses.” Once patients titrate up, she said, out-of-pocket costs can rise.

Cubanski and Joyce have no disclosures. Socal disclosed relationships with Arnold Ventures, the California Department of Health Care Access and Information, The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC), and the US Department of Defense. Kaltenboeck disclosed relationships with Arnold Ventures, West Health, and AARP.