Donald Trump staged a photo-op in which he held up a Washington Post headline reading "Prescription drug prices record sharpest drop in more than 60 years" and the White House circulated the image with the caption "POV: you bring the receipts." The Post story and independent experts quoted in it attributed the July 3.1 percent fall in prescription drug prices to Biden-era policy, specifically the Inflation Reduction Act requirement that Medicare begin negotiating prices for certain popular drugs, whose first reductions took effect earlier this year. Trump and his team took credit for the decline, but Harvard health economist Richard Frank told the Post he would bet on the Inflation Reduction Act as the main driver, and Vanderbilt health policy professor Stacie Dusetzina said the negotiated prices for about 10 commonly used drugs would likely show up in the prescription drug index. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, also shared the photograph. The episode highlights a direct public claim by the Trump White House that contrasts with the Post’s reporting and expert attribution of the price drop to Biden’s legislation.
