Trump to Announce All 50 States Joining Medicaid 'GENEROUS' Drug Pricing Model

President Donald Trump is expected to announce Friday that every U.S. state will participate in a Medicaid drug pricing program that applies most-favored-nation rates to selected medicines, bringing their net cost down to levels paid in certain other countries.

The initiative, which the administration has named the Medicaid "GENEROUS" model, is projected by the White House to save the program billions of dollars on prescription drugs. Independent experts, however, say the scale of those savings cannot be confirmed because the terms of the underlying agreements have not been disclosed.

The announcement lands as cost-of-living pressures rank among voters' top concerns before November's midterm elections. Trump has sought to address affordability by negotiating agreements with pharmaceutical manufacturers intended to prevent U.S. drug prices from being dramatically higher than those in other wealthy nations.

Last year, the president signed an executive order establishing a "Most Favored Nations" policy under which the United States would pay the same price for medicines as the country with the lowest price anywhere in the world. In May, the White House estimated that the drugmaker deals could save $529 billion over the next decade.

Medicaid enrollees, who receive coverage through the joint state-federal program for people with low incomes, already pay only a nominal co-payment of a few dollars per prescription. Lower net prices would nonetheless ease pressure on the state budgets that help fund the program.

Verifying the projected savings remains difficult. Few details of the agreements between the administration and participating drugmakers have been made public, leaving outside analysts unable to check the figures.

Kathy Hempstead, a senior policy advisor at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said the administration faces substantial pressure to release more granular data to justify its cost-savings claims, and that the information gap hinders legislative action.

"He is saying Congress should codify all of his MFN arrangements," Hempstead said. "But it's kind of unreasonable because it's not clear what Congress would actually do. No one knows what is in these deals."

She also raised questions about whether the price cuts would outlast the current administration or whether prices would revert once it leaves office.

Some stakeholders want the benefits to reach more people. JD Hayworth, a former Republican congressman and spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Reform Alliance, said in a statement that Friday's announcement reflects "meaningful progress, but that progress remains incomplete," noting that millions of Americans outside government healthcare programs are also seeking lower drug prices.

What patients pay in the United States depends on several factors, including competition a treatment faces and insurance coverage. Most Americans obtain coverage through employers, the individual insurance market or government programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, which absorb much of the cost.