White House estimates Trump’s Big Pharma dealmaking will save Americans $529 billion over the next 10 years

White House economists estimate that President Donald Trump’s deals with pharmaceutical companies to drop some of their U.S. prescription drug prices to what they charge in other countries could save $529 billion over the next 10 years. The analysis obtained by The Associated Press includes the first economy-wide projections behind a policy at the core of Trump’s pitch to voters going into November’s midterm elections for control of the House and Senate. Democratic lawmakers have been doubtful about the savings claimed by Trump and these new numbers are likely to trigger additional questions about the data. Cost-of-living issues are at the forefront of voters’ concerns and higher energy prices tied to the Iran war have deepened the public’s anxiety. Trump has tried in part to address affordability concerns by focusing on his efforts to cut deals with companies so that the cost of prescription drugs in the U.S. would no longer be dramatically higher than in other affluent nations. “Now you have the lowest drug prices anywhere in the world,” Trump said at a Friday rally before a crowd of seniors in Florida. “And that alone should win us the midterms.” The analysis was done by administration officials for the White House Council of Economic Advisers. They also estimated that federal and state governments could save a combined $64.3 billion on Medicaid during the next decade because of what Trump calls his “most favored nation” policy on drug prices. Few of the details of the deals struck by the Trump administration and 17 leading pharmaceutical companies have been made public, making it hard to independently verify the projected savings. The White House analysis sought to estimate the prospective savings as more medications come onto the market and fall under Trump’s framework — with one model in the report tallying the possible savings at $733 billion over a decade. Trump and his Department of Health and Human Services have touted his drug-pricing deals as transformat