White House launches direct-to-consumer drug site TrumpRx

(cnbc.com)

15 points | by geox 2 hours ago ago

21 comments

  • charles_f 21 minutes ago

    The name of that website is interesting. I had heard of landmarks being named after politicians, laws being nicknamed after them (e.g. obamacare) or after judicial decisions, but it seems that it's usually, at least seemingly, by others. This one is directly named after the president launching it. I can't think of a precedent, was there one?

  • ceejayoz an hour ago

    Nice to see the admin can even flub basic math.

    https://imgur.com/a/XCQr5EP

    $1,449 --> $252 is "93% off", apparently?

    • EricRiese an hour ago

      This is the guy that promised 1000% discounts on drugs.

  • pupppet 41 minutes ago

    When Democrats regain power, what are Republicans going to complain about after 8 years of giving their guy the green light to do anything.

  • josefresco an hour ago

    Hm, I wonder what Mark Cuban who runs costplusdrugs.com thinks of this. He hasn't commented that I can see yet https://bsky.app/profile/mcuban.bsky.social

    • bityard an hour ago

      I haven't heard of this but he must be pretty proud of it, the page title is literally, "Homepage of Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs", his name is in the logo, and the picture is on the front page.

      • josefresco 14 minutes ago

        The branding is... weird. I always thoughts it was just a campaigning tactic for Mark's upcoming presidential bid but given how things have played out, now I'm not so sure.

    • Johnny555 an hour ago

      It's a much different service that Costplus

      Costplus manufactures and sells drugs at a small markup over manufacturing cost.

      TrumpRX appears to be more of a central clearinghouse where drug makers can offer discounts to consumers. And at least so far, they seem to be the same discounts that they already offer, when you look up a drug on the site, it redirects you to the manufacturer's website.

      Maybe it's useful for people without insurance that don't know how to search look for discount programs to help them buy drugs and maybe some manufacturers will offer discounts on the site that aren't available otherwise, but it's not a competitor to Cuban's site.

  • ortusdux an hour ago

    Reports are that this is just a rebranded GoodRx.

  • eykanal an hour ago

    So playing "skeptic in a vacuum" for a minute—i.e., pretending that I don't know anything about this administration, and not having done any research beyond reading the linked article—this seems like a pretty good thing. Insurance companies negotiate tremendous discounts for pharmaceuticals, which means that people without insurance are often majorly screwed when trying to buy medicine. Having the government act as a negotiator with the drug companies to obtain similar discounts for the uninsured seems to be a positive move.

    Happy to have someone explain to me why this is a bad take.

    • happytoexplain 34 minutes ago

      Assuming there's nothing wrong with it technically (scam, mishandling, whatever), then yeah, nothing wrong your take. It's just the obvious meta-problems: His name being on it creates trust issues and reluctance (and inversely: blind trust on the other side). Even just regarding image and principles: Most people justifiably hate the idea of a prideful asshole putting his name front and center on a government service - they want the comport of a president to be the opposite of a cartoonish car salesman. They might tolerate it if the guy in question doesn't cultivate that image (e.g. Obamacare), but even then, they don't want the guy to officially name it that (e.g. ACA) because that would again contribute to the image of petty self-advertisement. Of course this "normal" human psychology gets short-circuited with enough hate ("I don't like that behavior. Oh wait, my enemies also don't like? Now I like it.").

    • stvltvs an hour ago

      A step closer to Medicare for all?

  • sxp an hour ago

    > "White House launches direct-to-consumer drug site..."

    > "The site is not selling drugs directly to American patients..."

    Just another layer of middlemen. They should go with the proper free market option and allow Americans to buy medication from other countries.

    • johannes1234321 an hour ago

      How could the Trump family then directly benefit from it?

  • tmaly an hour ago

    Is this like Trump University?

    • 33 minutes ago
      [deleted]
    • chneu an hour ago

      Another scam? Yes

  • behole an hour ago

    The ratio of shit to brains with people that still support and run cover for this clown car of bad scam artists is alarming! The new intellectual dark ages.

  • ranger_danger 38 minutes ago

    He is desperate to come up with a grift with his name on it because he's jealous of Obamacare, which was even named by Republicans, even though they also somehow think the ACA isn't the exact same thing.

  • arghandugh an hour ago

    [dead]