Social Security Works Exec. Dir. Alex Lawson on Trump’s Executive Order, “Delivering most-favored-nation prescription drug pricing to American patients” — another scam to cut Medicaid and Medicare.
Social Security Works Executive Director.
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Summary
Alex Lawson, Social Security Works Executive Director, explains that Donald Trump’s new “Most‑Favored‑Nation” executive order on drug pricing is largely symbolic, designed to distract voters from a House GOP plan that would slash Medicaid, SNAP, and other safety‑net programs to fund tax cuts for the wealthy; the order’s limited scope means it will not meaningfully lower most Americans’ prescription costs.
- The executive order covers only a narrow Part B slice of Medicare drugs and omits retail prescriptions that burden seniors most.
- Pharma lobbyists can easily stall or gut the rule, whereas fundamental reforms—such as complete Medicare price negotiation—face GOP opposition.
- House Republicans are simultaneously advancing a reconciliation bill that would strip health coverage from an estimated 13.7 million people.
- Trump cites hypothetical savings from the order (and tariff revenue) to justify massive new tax breaks for billionaires.
- Lawson urges grassroots pressure—local protests at Social Security offices and hospitals—to force lawmakers to abandon the cuts.
This episode exposes a familiar right‑wing playbook: tossing the public a flimsy “populist” headline while dismantling programs that actually keep working families alive. True populism would expand Medicare’s negotiating power, defend Medicaid, and reinvest drug‑price savings into communities, not into Wall Street’s dividend checks.
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Donald Trump’s announcement of a “Most‑Favored‑Nation” (MFN) executive order to slash prescription‑drug costs dramatizes the core insight Alex Lawson, Social Security Works Executive Director, offered in the Politics Done Right interview: the president is staging a publicity stunt to camouflage a simultaneous raid on public health‑care programs. Trump’s proposal directs the Department of Health and Human Services to peg what Medicare pays for physician‑administered drugs to the lowest price charged in any advanced economy. On its face, that sounds bold, yet the order covers only a narrow slice of medicines—those billed through Medicare Part B—and it does nothing about the retail prescriptions that empty seniors’ wallets every month. Even the conservative Associated Press concedes the plan leaves out the drugs people pick up at the pharmacy counter and “excludes common prescriptions” altogether.
Progressives have seen this play before. Trump floated essentially the same MFN idea in 2020; federal courts tossed it for sidestepping statutory rule‑making requirements. Analysts now expect another litigation gauntlet, because the pharmaceutical industry’s lobby regards reference pricing as an existential threat. Even if the order survives, it lacks teeth: the language merely instructs officials to “propose regulations if voluntary compliance fails,” a loophole large enough for PhRMA to drive an armored truck of profits through. Compare that to Senator Jeff Merkley and Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2025 “End Price Gouging Act,” which would impose mandatory international reference pricing across the entire market and impose civil penalties on firms that refuse. Trump’s order, by contrast, reads like branding material, not policy.
Lawson’s larger warning concerns what happens in Congress the very next day. House Republicans are fast‑tracking a reconciliation package whose Medicaid plank alone would throw an estimated 13.7 million people off health coverage, according to the non‑partisan Congressional Budget Office. The same bill shreds SNAP, Meals‑on‑Wheels, and nursing‑home staffing rules. In plain language: the party that claims to champion “working Americans” is financing permanent tax cuts for the ultra‑rich by ripping a gaping hole in the public safety net. Thus, the MFN executive order functions as political misdirection—an aspirin offered in one hand while the other swipes the entire medicine cabinet.
Polling underscores why Trump needs the distraction. A May 9 Forbes tracker shows his net approval on economic stewardship at –14 points, with just 37 percent of respondents approving. A broader Newsweek poll registered 40 percent approval of the economy, the lowest of his post‑presidency. Meanwhile, Kaiser Family Foundation surveys continue to find that reducing drug prices is the public’s top health‑policy priority. More than three‑quarters of voters, including most Republicans, support empowering Medicare to negotiate directly with manufacturers. Yet every House Republican voted against Medicare negotiation in the Inflation Reduction Act and is currently maneuvering to weaken that breakthrough. The disconnect is staggering: the GOP blocks proven cost‑cutting tools while marketing a hollow executive order as populism.
Progressives argue that genuine relief demands structural reform. The Inflation Reduction Act already capped insulin at $35 for seniors. It will impose negotiated prices on the first ten high‑cost drugs in 2026, expanding to sixty by 2029—a trajectory that promises real savings and reinvests those dollars in expanded benefits. Lawmakers could accelerate that timeline, extend price negotiation to private insurance, and outlaw the patent‑evergreening tricks that keep generics off the market. They could also pass the Sanders‑Merkley reference‑pricing bill, use the federal government’s purchasing power to break Big Pharma’s monopoly pricing, and funnel the savings into Medicare, Social Security, and rural‑hospital stabilization funds. Those are concrete proposals—not press releases—and enjoy broad, bipartisan popularity.
The financial stakes cast further doubt on Trump’s narrative. The White House spin links hypothetical MFN “savings” and tariff revenue to bond‑market stability, insinuating that these offsets will pay for fresh tax cuts. Budget math tells a different story. Medicare Part B spent $33 billion on physician‑administered drugs in 2021. Even an aggressive 30 percent price haircut—unlikely under Trump’s voluntary scheme—would save roughly $10 billion annually, a pittance beside the trillions the GOP hopes to shower on wealthy donors. By contrast, Medicaid’s $636 billion budget becomes a tantalizing target for austerity hawks. They would rather kick disabled and elderly beneficiaries off coverage than ask the pharmaceutical or fossil‑fuel giants to sacrifice a nickel in quarterly dividends.
Lawson’s prescription is inherently local and fiercely democratic: Occupy the physical spaces that symbolize public programs. A protest line outside a Social Security field office, a vigil at a rural hospital on the brink, or a packed town‑hall meeting with a swing‑district representative forces national headlines to materialize from community pain. The strategy mirrors historic progressive victories, from the sit‑ins that saved the Affordable Care Act in 2017 to the mass mobilizations that secured the first $35 insulin cap. Grassroots energy turns abstract budget tables into human stories the evening news cannot ignore.
Trump’s new drug‑pricing order operates as choreographed smoke, not blazing reform. It revisits an old initiative that courts struck down, exempts most prescriptions, and leaves Big Pharma’s profit model intact. Behind that curtain, Republican lawmakers are preparing the most significant attack on Medicaid and nutrition assistance in a generation—policies that will shorten lives to lengthen yacht slips. A truly populist approach would finish what the Inflation Reduction Act started: universal price negotiation, ironclad patient protections, and robust investment in the public institutions that keep working families alive. Until Washington acts on that mandate, progressives will continue to expose pseudo‑populist theatrics for what they are: a sideshow designed to pick the audience’s pockets while the spotlight blinds their eyes.
