Trump Highlights Drug Price Reductions in SOTU

President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address on Tuesday to highlight efforts to reduce health care costs, focusing on prescription drug prices and a new federal platform called TrumpRx, while criticizing Democrats and insurance companies for contributing to affordability challenges.

In the 1-hour-and-47-minute speech to Congress, Trump described the Affordable Care Act, which he called the Unaffordable Care Act or Obamacare, as a key driver of rising expenses. He accused large insurers of profiting immensely from federal subsidies, with their stock prices surging between 1,000 and 1,700 percent since the law's passage. "Big insurance companies got rich," Trump said, promising to redirect those billions in taxpayer dollars directly to individuals to purchase coverage at lower prices.

Trump emphasized his administration's actions on pharmaceuticals, claiming to have transformed the United States from paying the highest drug prices globally to the lowest. He credited the most favored nation policy, which aims to align U.S. prices with those in other major countries, and the TrumpRx website, launched on February 5. The platform, designed primarily for uninsured...