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| - Trump's reversal of Biden's order halted implementation of a program meant to lower drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries.
The program Trump is halting would not have affected Medicaid beneficiaries, who were not included in the cost-cutting program to begin with.
Trump rescinded Executive Order 14087, "Lowering Prescription Drug Costs for Americans," which directed Medicare and Medicaid agencies to research and implement models for lowering the costs of prescription drugs. Separate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 also aimed at lower prescription drug costs are still in effect.
On the first day of his second term in office, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order rescinding many of the executive orders signed by his predecessor, former President Joe Biden. According to several social media posts on X, including some posted by Democratic members of Congress, one of the orders Trump repealed was meant to lower prescription drug prices for people on Medicare and Medicaid.
For example, Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a Democrat from Florida, posted the following:
The Democratic National Committee published (archived) a news release condemning Trump's alleged action, and news publications including Truthout (archived), Newsweek (archived) and STAT News (archived) covered the purported rescission.
The claim is mostly true: On Day 1 of his second term of office, Trump rescinded Biden's Executive Order 14087, "Lowering Prescription Drug Costs for Americans." Trump's action halted research and implementation of a program meant to lower the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries; it did not, however, affect prescription drug costs for Medicaid beneficiaries, who were not included in Biden's cost-cutting program (though Biden's executive order did call for increasing access to certain health treatments for people on Medicaid).
That said, Trump's executive order didn't negate other efforts by the Biden administration to rein in prescription drug costs. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 contained several provisions aimed at reducing the price of prescription medications that were not rescinded by Trump.
Snopes reached out to the White House to learn more about the reasoning behind Trump's repeal of Biden's program and will update this article if we receive a reply.
Biden's Executive Order Lowering Drug Prices
On Oct. 14, 2022, Biden signed Executive Order 14087, "Lowering Prescription Drug Costs for Americans," which directed the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to research and test health care payment and delivery models to lower drug costs and improve access to health care for Medicare and Medicaid patients.
Sec. 2. HHS Actions. In furtherance of the policy set forth in section 1 of this order, the Secretary shall, consistent with the criteria set out in 42 U.S.C. 1315a(b)(2), consider whether to select for testing by the Innovation Center new health care payment and delivery models that would lower drug costs and promote access to innovative drug therapies for beneficiaries enrolled in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, including models that may lead to lower cost-sharing for commonly used drugs and support value-based payment that promotes high-quality care. The Secretary shall, not later than 90 days after the date of this order, submit a report to the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy enumerating and describing any models that the Secretary has selected. The report shall also include the Secretary's plan and timeline to test any such models. Following the submission of the report, the Secretary shall take appropriate actions to test any health care payment and delivery models discussed in the report.
The report produced in response to the executive order is available on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' website. That report lists three proposed models: the Medicare High-Value Drug List Model, the Cell & Gene Therapy Access Model and the Accelerating Clinical Evidence Model.
The first model allows Part D Sponsors, or private insurers who provide prescription drug benefits to Medicare beneficiaries, to offer "approximately 150 high-value generic drugs with a maximum co-payment of $2 for a month's supply," thus lowering prescription drug costs for many Medicare beneficiaries.
The latter two models are focused on improving access to certain health treatments by lowering how much Medicare and Medicaid pay for specific kinds of therapies and medications. However, these two programs were not explicitly aimed at lowering prescription drug costs for patients.
According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the model lowering prescription drug costs was in development as of October 2024, with the goal of implementing the model by 2027.
However, Trump rescinded the executive order on implementing lower prescription drug costs. It is listed on the White House website as one of many Biden-era orders he reversed on Jan. 20, 2025:
Sec. 2. Revocation of Orders and Actions. The following executive actions are hereby revoked:
[…]
Executive Order 14087 of October 14, 2022 (Lowering Prescription Drug Costs for Americans).
Because Trump rescinded Biden's executive order, which directed the HHS secretary to implement these models, and the models in question only lowered prescription drug prices for patients on Medicare, but not Medicaid, the claim is mostly true.
What Trump's Executive Order Did Not Affect
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, one of Biden's signature policy achievements, made several changes to Medicare in an effort to reduce drug prices. None of the regulations set were affected by Trump's order.
Starting in 2023, the Inflation Reduction Act capped the price of insulin for those on Medicare Part D to $35 per month and made vaccination a zero-copay procedure. Starting in 2025, the act set a yearly $2,000 cap for out-of-pocket payments on drugs covered by Medicare and allowed anyone on Medicare Part D to opt into a monthly payment program.
Additionally, the Inflation Reduction Act allowed the federal government to directly negotiate prescription drug prices for Medicare consumers with manufacturers, resulting in lower prices. In 2024, the government negotiated prices for 10 brand-name drugs, including medications for diabetes, cancer and arthritis. Those prices will go into effect in 2026. According to the official Medicare website, the government will negotiate prices on more drugs each year — 15 in 2025 and 2026, for instance. Those new prices will go into effect two years after negotiations.
Finally, the Inflation Reduction Act attempted to prevent large increases in prices by requiring drug manufacturers to pay a rebate to the federal government if they raised drug prices faster than the rate of inflation.
All of these policies remain in effect, and will do so unless different legislation or a court decision overturns them. Trump cannot unilaterally reverse legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed by Congress and signed by Biden, with an executive order.
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