President Donald Trump announced the latest addition to his personal branding empire this week: TrumpRx, a government website that claims it will offer deeply discounted drugs to many Americans. News of the website’s forthcoming launch was accompanied by an announcement from Pfizer that it would voluntarily reduce the prices it charges the Medicaid program.

It all sounds like genuinely good news: a new website offering low-cost drugs and new discounts for an insurance program that covers millions of low-income Americans. And it looks great on the press release: “President Trump is delivering on promises for American patients that the political establishment did not believe were possible.”

But what he actually delivered was a splashy announcement — and, at least so far, little else. The actions heavily promoted by the Trump administration this week are unlikely to meaningfully affect the prices paid by most Americans for their prescription drugs.

“It’s really easy to do something that sounds like it’s going to save people money and lower profits for pharma and save taxpayers money. It’s much harder to actually do those things,” said Stacie Dusetzina, who studies drug pricing at Vanderbilt University. She called it simultaneously “a great press release” and “a splashy announcement without a lot of substance.”

The problem is in the details or, rather, the lack thereof. Let’s get into it.

TrumpRx doesn’t bring anything new to the prescription drug market

The specifics on........

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