Bloomberg Law spoke with CAHC’s Joel White regarding concerns over how President Donald Trump’s prescription drug website will affect pharmacies and whether they’ll be able to afford cashing TrumpRx coupons for patients.
TrumpRx’s impact on pharmacies is “the big question mark,” said Joel White, president of the Council for Affordable Health Coverage.
“Is it better or worse than PBM pricing?” White said. “I think that’s case-by-case.”
How popular the coupons will be will also factor into whether pharmacies decide to accept them, White said. More customers means more profits, even if they’re slim.“A lot of pharmacies are very focused on driving volumes with traffic to their retail outlets,” he said. “Because it’s not just the drug, it’s the retail store and revenue from that.”
White, who lobbies for wholesalers as a partner at Monument Advocacy, said the companies’ lobbying efforts are focused on educating policymakers about how the numerous existing drug pricing programs interact.
“How does all this stuff work together? And the answer is, it’s not a clean shot.” he said. “They all have whipsaw effects. They all have different incentives tied to them.”