HARD TO SWALLOW

Trump Unveiling New Drug-Selling Website Named After Himself

The White House and Pfizer have collaborated on the scheme.

Donald Trump is set to launch a website that will allow people to purchase discounted medications, and making sure he gets the credit for the initiative.

The White House will unveil a new direct-to-consumer website for medications on Tuesday, which will carry the near-eponymous name TrumpRx, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Some details about the TrumpRx website remain unclear, such as whether it will be useful for those using Medicare and Medicaid, government programs for the elderly and low-income patients, respectively.

The site will allow users to search for specific drugs and purchase them at a reduced price directly through the government platform. Pfizer, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, is also expected to announce plans to lower drug prices in the U.S. so that they align more closely with costs in other countries.

However, it is certain that people will not be able to use TrumpRx to get a discount of anywhere between 1,000 and 1,500 percent, the mathematically impossible figures that the president has frequently used. The MAGA math would yield negative prices, meaning that drug companies would have to pay people to take their medications.

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“We will have reduced drug prices by 1,000 percent by 1,100, 1,200, 1,300, 1,400, 700, 600,” the 79-year-old president said during a typically rambling White House event in July.

“Not 30 or 40 or 50 percent, but numbers the likes of which you’ve never even dreamed of before.”

The website launch follows Trump’s letter to 17 drug manufacturers demanding they take steps to lower U.S. drug costs by Sept. 29.

Other companies are reportedly preparing to follow Pfizer’s lead, with its promised reductions expected to benefit as many as 100 million patients, The Journal reported.

“It’s a win for American patients, a win for American leadership, and it’s a win for Pfizer because it provides the certainty and stability we need to continue advancing new breakthrough medicines for patients,” Pfizer spokesperson Amy Rose told the newspaper.

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“President Trump is leveraging the power of the federal government to drastically cut drug prices for everyday Americans,” White House spokesman Kush Desai added to the Daily Beast. “Democrats talked the talk for decades about drug prices, but only President Trump is actually walking the walk.”

The Daily Beast has contacted Pfizer for further comment.

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