Fact Check: Did Trump Raise Prescription Drug Prices?

President Donald Trump has been accused of raising prescription drug prices for seniors by immediately rescinding former President Joe Biden‘s executive order to lower costs after beginning his second term on Monday.

Amid an avalanche of executive orders from Trump on Inauguration Day, Biden’s executive order 14087, “Lowering Prescription Drug Costs for Americans,” was among several dozen that Trump reversed in an order targeting the “recession of harmful executive orders and actions.”

Biden’s order directed the Department of Health and Human Services to explore strategies to reduce costs. The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) responded to the order with programs to cap the price of certain generic drugs at $2 for Medicare beneficiaries, improve Medicaid access to high-cost cell and gene therapies and to streamline the evidence-gathering process for new drugs.

The Claim

“Donald Trump rescinded Biden’s action to lower prescription drug costs for Americans on Medicare and Medicaid,” Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California wrote on Monday in a post X, formerly Twitter. “There’s no other way to spin it. That means more money out-of-pocket for seniors and families. Big Pharma first. Ordinary people last.”

In a post to X shortly after Trump signed the order on Monday night, Representative Jimmy Gomez, also a California Democrat, wrote that “President Trump just took a step to increase prescription drug costs for millions of Americans.”

Lawyer Tristan Snell, who successfully prosecuted a New York state civil suit against Trump University, also accused the president of raising drug prices on Tuesday, writing on X that Trump had raised “drug costs by as much as 4200%.”

“He just reversed all the cost caps Biden negotiated for anyone on Medicare or Medicaid, over 120 MILLION Americans,” Snell wrote. “He’s pro Big Pharma — and pro Big Insurance. He doesn’t care about you. It was all LIES.”

The Facts

While Trump’s reversal of Biden’s order did not immediately change any existing laws and regulations on prescription drug pricing for Medicare and Medicaid, it did create uncertainty about the federal government’s approach to addressing prescription drug costs.

Dr. Mark McClellan, director of the…