platform

WASHINGTON  — The White House’s TrumpRx website went live Thursday with a promise to instantly deliver prescription drugs at “the lowest price anywhere in the world.”

“This launch represents the largest reduction in prescription drug prices in history by many, many times, and it’s not even close,” President Trump said at a news conference announcing the launch of the platform.

Drug policy experts say the jury is still out on whether the platform will provide the significant savings Trump promises, though it will probably help people who need drugs not commonly covered by insurance.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, called the site a “vanity project” and questioned whether the program presents a possible conflict of interest involving the pharmaceutical industry and the Trump family.

What is TrumpRx, really?

The new platform, trumprx.gov, is designed to help uninsured Americans find discounted prices for high-cost, brand-name prescriptions, including fertility, obesity and diabetes treatments.

The site does not directly sell drugs. Instead, consumers browse a list of discounted medicines, and select one for purchase. From there, they either receive a coupon accepted at certain pharmacies or are routed directly to a drug manufacturer’s website to purchase the prescription.

The White House said the reduced prices are possible after the administration negotiated voluntary “most favored nation” agreements with 16 major drugmakers including Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.

Under these deals, manufacturers have agreed to set certain U.S. drug prices no higher than those paid in other wealthy nations in exchange for three-year tariff exemptions. However, the full legal and financial details of the deals have not been made public, leaving lawmakers to speculate how TrumpRx’s pricing model works.

What does it accomplish?

Though the White House has framed TrumpRx as a historic reset for prescription drug costs, economists said the platform offers limited new savings.

But it does move the needle on the issue of drug pricing transparency, away from the hidden mechanisms behind how prescription drugs are priced, rebated and distributed, according to Geoffrey Joyce, director of health policy at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics.

“This has been a murky world, a terrible, obscure, opaque marketplace where drug prices have been inconsistently priced to different consumers,” Joyce said, “So this is a little step in the right direction, but it’s mostly performative from my perspective, which is kind of Trump in a nutshell.”

Still, for the uninsured or people seeking “lifestyle drugs” — like those for fertility or weight loss that insurers have historically declined to cover — TrumpRx could become a useful option, Joyce said.

“It’s kind of a win for Trump and a win for Pfizer,” Joyce said. “They get to say, ‘Look what we’re doing. We’re lowering prices. We’re keeping Trump happy, but it’s on our low-volume drugs, and drugs that we were discounting big time anyway.’”

Where does it fall short?

Early analyses by drug policy experts suggest many of the discounted medications listed on the TrumpRx site were already on offer through other drug databases before the platform launched.

For example, Pfizer’s Duavee menopause treatment is listed at $30.30 on TrumpRx, but it is also available for the same price at some pharmacies via GoodRx.

Weight management drug Wegovy starts at $199 on TrumpRx. Manufacturers were already selling the same discounted rates through its NovoCare Pharmacy program before the portal’s launch.

“[TrumpRx] uses data from GoodRx, an existing price-search database for prescription drugs,” said Darius N. Lakdawalla, a senior health policy researcher at USC. “It seems to provide prices that are essentially the same as the lowest price GoodRx reports on its website.”

Compared to GoodRx, TrumpRx covers a modest subset of drugs: 43 in all.

“Uninsured consumers, who do not use or know about GoodRx and need one of the specific drugs covered by the site, might benefit from TrumpRx. That seems like a very specific set of people,” Lakdawalla said.

Where do Democrats stand?

Democrats slammed the program this week, saying it would not provide substantial discounts for patients, and called for greater transparency around the administration’s dealings with drugmakers. To date, the administration has not disclosed the terms of the pricing agreements with manufacturers such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

In the lead-up to the TrumpRx launch, Democratic members of Congress questioned its usefulness and urged federal health regulators to delay its debut.

“This is just another Donald Trump pet project to rebrand something that already exists, take credit for it, and do nothing to actually lower healthcare prices,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said Friday. “Democrats will continue fighting to lower healthcare costs and push Republicans to stop giving handouts to billionaires at the expense of working-class Americans.”

Three other Democratic senators — Dick Durbin, Elizabeth Warren and Peter Welch — raised another concern in a Jan. 29 letter to Thomas March Bell, inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services.

The three senators pointed to potential conflicts of interest between TrumpRx and an online dispensing company, BlinkRx.

One of Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr., joined the BlinkRx Board of Directors in February 2025.

Months before, he became a partner at 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm that holds a significant stake in BlinkRx and led the startup’s $140-million funding round in 2024. After his appointment, BlinkRx launched a service to help pharmaceutical companies build direct-to-patient sales platforms quickly.

“The timing of the BlinkRx announcement so closely following the administration’s outreach to the largest drug companies, and the involvement of President Trump’s immediate family, raises questions about potential coordination, influence and self-dealing,” according to an October 2025 statement by Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Both BlinkRx and Donald Trump Jr. have denied any coordination.

What’s next?

The rollout of TrumpRx fits into a suite of White House programs designed to address rising costs, an area of vulnerability for Republicans ahead of the November midterms.

The White House issued a statement Friday urging support for the president’s healthcare initiative, dubbed “the great healthcare plan,” which it said will further reduce drug prices and lower insurance premiums.

For the roughly 8% of Americans without health insurance, TrumpRx’s website promises that more high-cost, brand-name drugs will be discounted on the platform in the future.

“It’s possible the benefits will become broader in the future,” Lakdawalla said. “I would say that the jury remains out on its long-run structure and its long-run pricing effects.”

Before hitting the stage, the comedians of the TV series “Jokes with JoySauce” have an on-camera ritual of exchanging immigrant stories about growing up with their families. There is no audience during these moments, just comics being vulnerable with one another.

The tales give insight into the lives they live offstage and their perspectives as Asian Americans that inspire so much of their material. It lets the audience know more about these up-and-coming comedians without the generic stage introductions.

The series is part of the original program curated for JoySauce, available on Amazon Prime. It premiered in early January as part of the first free, ad-supported streaming channel dedicated to highlighting Asian American voices across comedy, film, reality TV and sitcoms.

Season 1 of “Jokes with JoySauce” is currently airing as part of the launching programming for the channel. Director and creator of the series Ana Tuazon Parsons is excited to watch it grow.

Narumi Inatsugu, from left, Cat Ce, Ana Tuazon Parsons and Jonathan Sposato at The Times’ office in El Segundo.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

“I’m still definitely going for that underground punk rock, like, let’s-find-some-cool-people kind of thing for Season 2,” Parsons said. “Bigger and better venue, and more budget, more budget, please.”

While Parsons focuses on cultivating new comedic voices, JoySauce wants to create its own opportunities for people in the community by broadening its mission of ownership and representation.

“We won’t really get the full spectrum of the representation that I believe that we deserve unless we own the pipeline and the platforms and the carriers and really the gateways,” Jonathan Sposato, creator of Joysauce, said.

He decided to bring the platform to the masses in 2022 after growing sick and tired of how much hate his community was going through and wanting to fill in a gap in the media. Media representation was also low for Asian American actors, with only 6% of all Asian characters in 100 titles on streaming platforms in 2022 in leading roles, according to a study by USC Annenberg Gold House.

“I do think positivity wins,” Sposato said. “Comedy is a very necessary tool, a necessary ingredient in the overall mix of what we’re trying to offer.”

His goal is to broaden the concept of Asian American culture through storytelling that would display what the U.S. has to offer while staying rooted in Asia.

“A win for JoySauce is a win for anybody who feels underrepresented, who doesn’t feel like they’re considered the normative mainstream,” he said.

At a time when attention is a currency, creating a space that’s focused on elevating AAPI voices will help diversify the media landscape.

“A win for JoySauce is a win for anybody who feels underrepresented, who doesn’t feel like they’re considered the normative mainstream,” JoySauce creator Jonathan Sposato, left, said.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

“As a comedian, you cannot complain,” Cat Ce, a comedian whose special “Perfect Chinglish” was licensed by JoySauce, said. “Nowadays, you want it on so many different platforms, you never know which kind of audience you may reach.”

Her work reflects the kind of storytelling JoySauce hopes to amplify. The comedy hour by Ce deals with the cultural differences when dealing with family, friends and romantic relationships as a Chinese American. For Narumi Inatsugu, that universality is the point.

As the chief creative officer of JoySauce, Inatsugu wants to create a space where Asian Americans do not feel outnumbered.

“For so long I thought nobody cared about Asian American stories,” he said.

As a curator of the channel, and host of the upcoming “Chopsticks and Chill,” an interview show where he shares a meal with influential members of the AAPI community, Inatsugu wants to create a platform where the younger generation can see the many opportunities life can offer, regardless of your cultural background.

“It’s community building, it’s letting people know they can be whatever they want, do whatever they want,” he said.

Season 1 of “Jokes with JoySauce” is currently airing and is part of the first free, ad-supported streaming channel dedicated to highlighting Asian American voices across comedy, film, reality TV and sitcoms.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Throughout his years in the entertainment industry and in production meetings, Inatsugu felt like he couldn’t pitch certain stories because they were aimed at his Asian community. He hopes an outlet like JoySauce can create a safe space for creative minds to feel like they can be themselves and not feel outnumbered, the way he once did.

Everything in the details of a show will make people feel welcomed, from the people making it to the food that’s made available for the cast and crew.

During production of the first season of “Jokes with JoySauce,” Parsons made sure every aspect of the production was AAPI, including the food. Her production team made sure to fill the craft table with food that can be found at any Asian market. The sense of belonging is exactly the reason she built “Jokes with JoySauce” and why JoySauce exists.

“When I’d see the comics come up into the greenroom and their faces, it was like ‘Oh, I feel so like they were just reverted to their childhoods,’” she said. “It was just like they felt like they were at home with their families, and it was so important for me, it made me cry a little bit.”

A year ago, Colorado firefighters Rick Balentine and Tim Cottrell were driving trucks carrying donations from Aspen to Los Angeles for victims of the Eaton and Palisades fires.

As they headed west, they planned to stop in Las Vegas and, while there, made a spontaneous decision to see the Eagles’ residency at the Sphere. Balentine and Cottrell bought resale tickets on StubHub for around $400 each. Cottrell used his credit card and received a confirmation email. But once they arrived to the venue, they weren’t allowed in. The seller failed to send the tickets.

All Cottrell could find was an email that said his tickets had been canceled, moments before the concert was to start. Other than getting their money back, there was no further explanation.

“We knew they were aftermarket tickets,” Balentine said, “but never in a million years did I think that tickets could get canceled.”

“I was very disappointed. There needs to be more protection out there, both for consumers and for artists, so people aren’t getting ripped off all the time.”

The rising demand for tickets has spurred a growing marketplace for all kinds of high-profile live events, including music tours and sports series like the upcoming World Cup. Whenever fans are unable to secure tickets on the primary market, through sellers like Ticketmaster or AXS, many will turn to the secondary market for resale tickets. Those tickets are typically sold through platforms like StubHub, SeatGeek and Vivid Seats. Customers who bought their passes directly from Ticketmaster can also resell them on that platform.

The majority of secondary-market transactions can be easy, leaving both the reseller and the customer satisfied. But with the rise of speculative or fake tickets, like the ones Balentine and Cottrell bought, securing valid tickets from the resale market has become more challenging.

What are speculative tickets?

Speculative tickets are offered by resellers who list concert passes they don’t yet have in their possession, with the intention that they will ultimately acquire the tickets and deliver them to the buyer. According to 2025 data from Live Nation, one in three Americans has fallen victim to a ticketing scam. But under California’s bill, AB 1349, selling speculative tickets could be banned on all resale platforms in the state. On Monday, the bill passed in an assembly vote and is headed to the state Senate for review.

Thousands of fans enjoy Shakira’s performance at SoFi Stadium in August.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

Speculative tickets usually pop up as soon as a major artist announces a tour. Most recently, K-pop boy band BTS announced a world tour that includes four stops at SoFi Stadium. Before the general sale began Jan. 24, some sellers on Vivid Seats had already started listing tickets for over $6,000. Listings like these usually create a greater sense of scarcity, which can drive up ticket prices even more.

If enacted, the proposed legislation in California would require sellers to have event tickets in their possession before offering them for sale. The listing must include the location of the seat and specific refund rights. It prohibits a person from using software that automatically purchases more tickets than the specified limit, and it would raise the maximum civil penalty for each violation from $2,500 to $10,000.

The live music industry is a vital part of the state’s economy, contributing over $51 billion to California’s GDP and supporting over 460,000 jobs, according to the database 50 States of Music.

Ticketing fraud tends to affect more than just the consumer. Whenever an unknowing fan shows up to a venue with a fake ticket, it often falls on the venue and its staff to deal with the situation. Stephen Parker, the executive director of the National Independent Venue Association, said that if speculative tickets are banned in California, venues could save up to $50,000 in staffing expenses.

Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium, where many concerts and ticketed live events are held.

(Icon Sportswire/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

“They have to deal with fans who are crying, who are angry, who are upset because they thought they were going to go see their favorite artists that night, and they paid [over the] ticket’s face value only to not get a ticket that works or to not get a ticket at all,” said Parker.

Fighting ticket fraud and reining in a ticketing giant

There are currently dozens of legislative bills throughout the U.S. focused on event ticketing issues. Some states like Maryland, Minnesota and Maine have already passed restrictions on speculative tickets.

The action comes after both the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission sued Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, in 2024 and 2025. The DOJ’s lawsuit suggests breaking up the company, which it accuses of engaging in monopolistic practices. The complaint also alleges the company forces venues into exclusive ticketing contracts and influences artists to use only its services.

Founded in 1976, Ticketmaster has been the industry’s largest ticket distributor since 1995, with around 80% of live concerts sold through the site. The company merged with Live Nation in 2010.

Ticketmaster has also acquired a growing share of the resale market, under the platform Ticketmaster Resale. The site allows consumers to list, sell or find tickets to live events. The business functions similarly to other resale sites, but Ticketmaster does not allow speculative ticket sales on its platform.

The Federal Trade Commission is currently suing the company on accusations that it engaged in illegal ticket vendor practices for its resale business, like misleading artists and consumers with so-called “bait-and-switch pricing,” where advertised prices are lower than the actual total. Following the FTC’s complaint, the ticket seller made changes to its policies.

Additionally, Ticketmaster is no longer allowing users to have multiple accounts, which made it easier to purchase more tickets than the specified limit, and it is shutting down Trade Desk, the controversial software that helps resellers track and price tickets across several marketplaces.

Hundreds enjoy a performance by Banda Los Lagos during Jalisco Fest at the 2025 Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

“The FTC case against us is very frustrating because we think they’re sort of blaming the victim here. We’re the ones that are dealing with millions and millions of bots attacking us every day,” said Dan Wall, Live Nation’s vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs. “We’re trying to convince the federal government and state governments to get on the same page of recognizing where the problem is, which is overwhelmingly in the resale industry, and trying to do something about it.”

“We’re a much more artist and consumer-focused company, and so we don’t engage in the different kinds of business practices that are sketchy and unfair to the fans. We try to be a much more honest, legitimate outlet for getting resale tickets,” said Wall.

Critics find that the surge of anti-speculative ticketing bills around the country is a way for Ticketmaster to divert attention from its own legal troubles and shift attention onto the resale market. Live Nation is a key supporter of the California bill. Diana Moss, the director of competition policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, called AB 1349 “overkill” when it comes to the provisions and restrictions it places on the secondary market.

Fans cheer Sexyy Red at the Rolling Loud concert at Hollywood Park in March.

(Michael Owen Baker/For The Times)

“A lot of these bills in the states are a vehicle to disable the resale markets and hinder how they operate. Resale markets are important to consumers,” said Moss. “If you disable the resale market, then fans have no place to go — but back to Ticketmaster. That’s the whole game, disable the resale markets with legislation and regulation, and then everybody has to go back and deal with Ticketmaster and pay their monopoly ticket fees.”

Provisions in AB 1349 deem a ticket a license. The question of whether a ticket is a right or a license is an ongoing controversy in the ticketing world. Opponents of the bill are fearful that this change would give more power to Live Nation, as they could impose restrictions on how the ticket can be used, such as whether you’re allowed to sell your ticket on other platforms or if you can transfer it at all. Meghan Callahan, from the Empower Fans Coalition, a group that opposes the bill, equates this licensing change to taking a lease out on the ticket.

“Ticketmaster’s goal is to create less competition. This bill imposes restrictions on everybody else but themselves,” said Callahan. “They are trying to use consumer-friendly concepts and sneak in these other provisions to embolden their monopoly.”

Wall at Ticketmaster said that nothing on the consumers’ end would change if this bill were to pass, adding that tickets are already licenses “from the venue for you to come on the property during the time of the show and sit in that seat.”

“Honesty doesn’t favor one person or another. That’s what this [bill] is about,” said Wall.