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President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 20, 2025 (AP) President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 20, 2025 (AP)

President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 20, 2025 (AP)

Caleb McCullough
By Caleb McCullough January 23, 2025

Trump’s prescription drug executive order rollback didn’t quash all Biden-backed cost savings

If Your Time is short

  • Former President Joe Biden’s executive order was separate from the Inflation Reduction Act, which allowed Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs for the first time and capped out-of-pocket costs for recipients. 

  • Biden’s health department developed pilot plans in response to the order, but none had been implemented by the time Trump reversed it. Trump’s reversal means they likely won’t continue.

President Donald Trump revoked former President Joe Biden's executive order on prescription drug prices, leading to claims that the move reversed Biden’s broader efforts to lower prescription drug prices for older Americans.

"He just reversed all the cost caps Biden negotiated for anyone on Medicare or Medicaid, over 120 MILLION Americans," one image of an X post posted on Facebook said

The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

Among the flurry of executive orders Trump signed Jan. 20, one order revoked dozens of Biden’s past executive orders and memos, including one aimed at lowering prescription drug prices

The change reversed Biden’s direction to the Health and Human Services Department to develop pilot plans to reduce Medicare and Medicaid prescription drug costs. Those plans had not taken effect before Trump took office, but revoking the executive order did not immediately shut them down. 

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It did not reverse the cost savings Biden signed into law in the Inflation Reduction Act, which allowed Medicare to negotiate the price of drugs, capped insulin costs for Medicare recipients at $35 a month and capped out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare recipients. 

Since Congress passed those changes, only an act of Congress can undo them. 

Trump’s orders "simply say that the current president doesn't agree with the past one's political statements issued as executive orders," said Joseph Antos, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "If anyone wants to change the law, Congress has to pass a new law making that change."

The prices that Medicare negotiated for the first 10 drugs under the Inflation Reduction Act will take effect in 2026. The Biden administration announced the next set of drugs that Medicare will negotiate for on Jan. 17, which will take effect in 2027. That timeline will not be affected by the removal of Biden’s executive order.  

The executive order, which Biden signed in October 2022, had not spurred any lower drug prices by the time Trump revoked it Jan. 20. 

The order directed the Health and Human Services Department secretary to consider "new health care payment and delivery models" for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to test. 

The department settled on three plans

  • voluntary program for Medicare Part D providers to offer copayments of less than $2 a month for a list of common generic drugs.

  • A program to improve access to cell and gene therapies for Medicaid recipients.

  • A plan to speed up approval of new drugs.

With the executive order revoked, it’s unclear what will become of those proposals.

Trump’s Health and Human Services Department could build on them or develop similar policies aimed at lowering drug prices, but his administration has not announced any steps to do so.

In a statement to PolitiFact, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly did not say whether Trump will keep developing those programs, but she said he "will continue to deliver on his promise to make healthcare affordable for Americans."  

During his first term, Trump signed executive orders aimed at lowering drug costs under Medicare, lowering insulin and epinephrine costs for low-income people, and allowing the import of certain drugs. PolitiFact reported at the time the potential savings of those programs weren't clear, and they also failed to materialize before Biden took office. 

Biden canceled and delayed implementation of the Trump administration's rules aimed at drug prices. 

Revoking Biden’s order did not raise drug prices for anyone, since the plans had not taken effect yet. But it does mean, if Trump’s administration cancels those programs, their potential drug price reductions won’t be realized, said Mariana Socal, a Johns Hopkins University professor who specializes in drug prices. The gene therapy plan may have also improved access to therapies that Medicaid patients can’t now receive. 

"Patients will not see their savings that they could see under these programs, but they also might not see an extension in access that could be happening under these programs," she said.

Our ruling

A Facebook post said Trump "reversed all the cost caps Biden negotiated for anyone on Medicare or Medicaid." 

Trump revoked an executive order calling for the Health and Human Services Department to develop plans to lower prescription drug prices, and Trump’s administration is unlikely to continue pursuing those plans.

The change does not reverse any policy that lowered drug prices, but it signaled the administration may not advance existing pilot projects that aimed to do so. 

The cap on insulin and out-of-pocket drug costs and negotiated drug prices for Medicare recipients, which Biden championed and signed into law in the Inflation Reduction Act, won’t be affected by Trump’s decision to revoke Biden’s order. 

We rate the claim False. 

Our Sources

Facebook post, Jan. 21, 2025

Phone and email interview with G. William Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center, Jan. 22, 2025

Email interview with Joseph Antos, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Jan. 22, 2025

Phone interview with Mariana Socal, public health professor at Johns Hopkins University, Jan. 22, 2025

Email interview with White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly, Jan. 23, 2025

Trump White House, Initial rescissions of harmful executive orders and actions, Jan. 20, 2025

Biden White House, Executive order on lowering prescription drug costs for Americans, Oct. 14, 2022, accessed using archive.org

KFF, Explaining the prescription drug provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, Jan. 24, 2023

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Medicare drug price negotiation program: Negotiated prices for initial price applicability year 2026, Aug. 15, 2024

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, HHS Announces 15 Additional Drugs Selected for Medicare Drug Price Negotiations in Continued Effort to Lower Prescription Drug Costs for Seniors, Jan. 17, 2025

Department of Health and Human Services, A Report in Response to the Executive Order on Lowering Prescription Drug Costs for Americans, Feb. 14, 2023

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Medicare Two Dollar Drug List Model, accessed Jan. 22, 2025

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Cell and Gene Therapy (CGT) Access Model, accessed Jan. 22, 2025

Trump White House Archive, Congress Didn’t Act on Prescription Drug Prices. So President Trump Did. July 27, 2020

PolitiFact, President Trump claims he’s bringing down drug prices again, but the details of how are skimpy, Aug. 25, 2020

Fierce Healthcare, CMS pulls Trump-era Most Favored Nation drug price model, Jan. 4, 2022

Fierce Healthcare, Biden signs into law infrastructure bill that pauses controversial rebate rule, Nov. 16, 2021

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