At a staged photo op on Friday, Donald Trump waved a Washington Post headline reading "Prescription drug prices record sharpest drop in more than 60 years" and the White House posted the image with the caption "POV: you bring the receipts," a post also shared by press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Trump read the headline aloud and told reporters to relay the news, taking credit for the decline. The Post’s article, however, reported that independent experts say a Biden-era policy is the more likely driver: the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted in 2022, which required Medicare to begin negotiating prices for certain costly drugs and whose first negotiated price reductions took effect at the beginning of this year. Consumer Price Index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed prescription drug prices fell 3.1% in July. Harvard health economist Richard Frank told the Post he would bet on the Inflation Reduction Act over Trump administration actions, and Vanderbilt health policy professor Stacie Dusetzina said the negotiated prices, though covering just 10 drugs so far, are commonly used and would influence the prescription drug index. The immediate development is a White House public claim of credit while the cited reporting and experts attribute the price drop to Biden's Medicare negotiation rule.
