President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with U.S. oil companies’ executives (AP Photo)
President Donald Trump on Jan. 15 released his administration’s new health care affordability plan, which aims to lower prices through marketplace reforms that include price negotiation, increased competition, and greater price transparency.
Trump’s “Great Healthcare Plan” includes actions the administration has already introduced or is working to implement. If codified in federal law rather than being enforced through executive orders and federal regulations, the provisions are expected to carry greater weight and be more likely to last through future administrations.
“Instead of putting the needs of big corporations and special interests first, our plan finally puts you first and puts more money in your pocket,” Trump said in a video announcement. He called on Congress to pass the health care plan.
Reducing Prescription Drug Prices
The Trump administration has so far negotiated reduced drug prices for Medicaid patients with 15 pharmaceutical manufacturers through Trump’s Most-Favored Nation Prescription Drug Pricing plan.
The plan calls for pharmaceutical manufacturers to offer their lowest price on drugs to Medicaid customers, as well as to sell some drugs directly to U.S. patients at lower prices, introduce any new medications into the U.S. market at the lowest available price, and reinvest revenue realized from higher drug prices in other developed nations into the U.S. economy.
The policy is aimed at leveling prices between the United States and other developed nations, which have long enjoyed a price advantage over the United States.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the lower drug prices will save Americans far more than the cost of the prescription.
“When you reduce obesity-related complications from hypertension and diabetes—and the downstream effects of that, heart attacks, kidney failures, stroke, dementia, liver issues—you actually start saving enough money to justify more investments [in new medications],” Oz told reporters on Jan. 15.
Trump is asking Congress to make the policy law, with a grandfather clause for preexisting deals made by the administration.
The plan would also allow more medications that are proven to be safe to be dispensed without a prescription, reducing prices by increasing competition and avoiding the expense of consulting a doctor.
Direct Payments to Consumers
The Trump plan prioritizes making federal assistance in purchasing health care directly available to consumers rather than channeling the funds through insurance companies.
This contrasts with the Affordable Care Act—former President Barack Obama’s health care law, known as Obamacare—which operates by providing tax credits to consumers, which are paid directly to health insurers. Republicans have argued that the practice is both inflationary and a potential source for fraud. Democrats have suggested making them permanent.
“The president thinks that is far too narrow a view on what is ailing our health care system, and that is why he is putting something out that is much broader on how to improve affordability for American patients, not just in Obamacare,” a White House spokesperson told reporters on Jan. 15.
A plan to provide funded Health Savings Accounts as an alternative to extending the Obamacare enhanced subsidies, which expired in December 2025, failed to advance in the Senate.
A bipartisan group of senators continues to work on a compromise plan that would both extend those enhanced subsidies and combat fraud. After learning of Trump’s plan, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she will not give up the effort to extend the enhanced subsidies.
“I think we have to respond to the immediacy of the situation that we have now,” Murkowski told reporters on Jan. 15, referring to the sharp rise in health insurance premiums this year.
Price Transparency
Trump’s plan would compel health insurers to provide more information to consumers by adopting a “Plain English Insurance” Standard in communicating rates and coverage comparisons in simple terms.
Insurers would be required to publish information on their websites on the percentage of revenue paid out in claims, the percentage of claims denied, and the average wait time for routine care.
Health care providers who accept Medicare or Medicaid would be required to prominently post their pricing and fees in their offices for patients to see.
Increased transparency lowers prices by affecting the shopping choices of individuals and also employers, who are the largest purchasers of health coverage, according to the White House.
“Large employers are very, very desperate to get clear information on how they can be negotiating better prices,“ the White House spokesperson said. ”They have perhaps the best incentives within the system.”
The first Trump administration instituted a 2019 requirement that hospitals disclose their prices to the public. However, enforcement and compliance were limited.
The Trump administration proposed an updated transparency rule in December 2025.
