1020 - TrumpRx and High Drug Prices
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
About this episode:
The Trump administration's online prescription drug platform promises the world's lowest prices on medications. In this episode: Dr. Mariana Social explains how the site's discounts work, who they benefit, and whether they're truly the most affordable prices.
Guest:
Dr. Mariana Socal, PhD, MPP, MSc, studies the pharmaceutical market and is an associate professor in Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Host:
Stephanie Desmon, MA, is a former journalist, author, and the director of public relations and communications for the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs.
Show links and related content:
-
Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Launches TrumpRx.gov to Bring Lower Drug Prices to American Patients—The White House
-
TrumpRx launches, but it's unclear if it will lower drug prices for most patients—CNN
-
Tariffs on Pharmaceuticals—Public Health On Call (June 2025)
Transcript information:
Looking for episode transcripts? Open our podcast on the Apple Podcasts app (desktop or mobile) or the Spotify mobile app to access an auto-generated transcript of any episode. Closed captioning is also available for every episode on our YouTube channel.
Contact us:
Have a question about something you heard? Looking for a transcript? Want to suggest a topic or guest? Contact us via email or visit our website.
Follow us:
-
Here's our RSS feed
Note: These podcasts are a conversation between the participants, and do not represent the position of Johns Hopkins University.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 0:05.9 | where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges. |
| 0:16.3 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhhhu.edu. |
| 0:23.8 | That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:30.9 | Hey listeners, it's Lindsay Smith-Rogers. |
| 0:33.0 | As an answer to skyrocketing prescription drug prices, the Trump administration recently launched Trump RX, a web platform that can link consumers to discounts on a small but growing number of medications. |
| 0:45.5 | Today, Dr. Mariana SoCal, a Johns Hopkins expert on drug pricing, talks to Stephanie Desmond about how it works, who it may help, and whether Trump RX could lead to unintended |
| 0:55.5 | consequences. Let's listen. Mariana SoCal, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you so much for having me |
| 1:02.1 | today. So as we all know, the cost of prescription drugs is really high and has been for a while. |
| 1:08.0 | I read something that says that one in four people under 65 have difficulty |
| 1:11.9 | affording their medications. It's even worse for uninsured people. The Trump administration |
| 1:16.6 | has created something called Trump RX to help make a dent in drug prices. I'm wondering what |
| 1:23.2 | you can tell me about it. Let's start with what is it? Well, Trump RX is a new platform that the administration |
| 1:29.2 | developed where drug manufacturers can offer lower prices to American consumers in a concentrated |
| 1:37.8 | way. So all the different drug manufacturers can offer their drugs in the same platform. |
| 1:42.9 | But it's called a direct-to-consumer sales. |
| 1:46.4 | But in fact, consumers still will need to get these drugs at a pharmacy. |
| 1:51.5 | So it's a platform where all these different offers are basically congregated. |
| 1:58.2 | So I can go to the site and I can look up a variety of medications to see if I can get |
| 2:04.3 | them cheaper on this than, say, through my insurance or if I don't have insurance, if it's a cheaper |
| 2:09.8 | price. Correct. So my understanding is there's 43 medications currently on the site. It is about |
| 2:16.8 | 43, 44 drugs that are offered in this platform today. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.