White House shares drug pricing draft with pharma
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- The White House has drafted legislative text for its drug pricing policy and is sharing it with more than a dozen major pharmaceutical companies, according to people familiar with the meetings
- The draft legislation closely follows the outlines of voluntary deals the Trump administration previously made with pharma companies, per a White House official
- The bill includes a policy that would allow drugs purchased in cash to count toward a patient's deductible
- The drug pricing push is part of a broader Trump administration effort to get health reforms signed into law
- President Trump has elevated the effort through his affordability agenda in an election year, heightening the political profile of the legislation
Why it matters: Converting handshake deals into binding statute changes what the concessions mean in practice — a cash-paying patient on a high-deductible plan could see that spending finally count toward their deductible, and the more than a dozen major drugmakers now reviewing the draft are being asked to accept those same terms as law rather than voluntary commitments. With affordability a centerpiece of Trump's election-year agenda, the legislation carries both policy and political weight.
