Medicare Recipients to Get $200 for Prescription Drugs, Trump Says in Charlotte

President Donald Trump said that Americans in the Medicare health-care program for the elderly and disabled will be sent $200 discount cards for prescription drugs ahead of the November election.

“Nobody’s seen this before. These cards are incredible,” Trump said. “The cards will be mailed out in coming weeks. I will always take care of our wonderful senior citizens.”

It wasn’t immediately clear who would pay for the cards or under what authority the Trump administration was providing them. Assuming they are sent to all 33 million Medicare beneficiaries, the cards would cost about $6.6 billion.

The White House has been negotiating with drug makers over an order Trump signed in August that would cut the U.S. prices of some medicines by tying them to prices paid in other Western countries with national health-care systems.

But the leading lobby group for the industry, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said last week it had rejected a request by the administration to provide discount cards to Medicare patients as part of the deal.

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