Month: October 2025

The federal government officially entered a shutdown at midnight on Wednesday after lawmakers were unable to reach a compromise on funding, marking the first lapse in nearly seven years.

The federal government ran out of money after a Democratic-backed spending bill that would have extended health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and reversed cuts to Medicaid failed, as well as the GOP-backed stopgap funding measure that would have funded the government for seven weeks also failed. The Senate is expected to vote again on Wednesday, likely on the same two measures that failed Tuesday. However, there is no clear path to a resolution, with the two sides fundamentally at odds over how to resolve the impasse.

A temporary funding measure passed by House Republicans—which would have kept the government operating at current spending levels for seven more weeks—was blocked in the Senate. Because Republicans hold a narrow majority there, they need Democratic votes to move any spending bill forward. Democrats have conditioned their support on the continuation of federal health care tax credits, a demand Republicans have so far rejected.

With no resolution before the deadline, funding expired across most federal agencies and departments as the clock struck 12. Beginning Wednesday morning, agencies will roll out shutdown protocols that include furloughing hundreds of thousands of federal employees. Essential staff and those paid through alternate funding sources will continue working, but nearly all federal workers—whether furloughed or not—will go without pay until Congress passes a new funding bill.

About 750,000 employees will be furloughed each day, the Congressional Budget Office said, while others who work essential jobs, like Transportation Security Administration agents, air traffic controllers, federal law enforcement officers and members of the military, will be forced to work without pay. They are guaranteed back pay once the shutdown ends.

National parks will remain partially open during the shutdown. Medicare and Social Security benefits are unchanged, as they aren’t subject to the annual funding process, though new applicants could face delays due to workers’ being on furlough.

It’s the first government shutdown since 2018, in Trump’s first term, which was the longest in history at 34 days and lasted into early 2019. he impact of the current shutdown will largely depend on its duration. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that simply covering the cost of furloughed employees could reach approximately $400 million per day.

After signing executive actions at the White House, Pres. Trump said a “lot of good can come from shutdowns” because the administration can “get rid of” Democratic policies. Trump said: “we’re doing well as a country so the last thing we want to do is shut it down. But a lot of good can come down from shutdowns. We get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want, and they’d be Democrat things. But they want open borders, they want men playing in women’s sports, they want transgender for everybody. They never stop. And they don’t learn. We won an election in a landslide, they just don’t learn. So we have no choice. I have to do that for the country.”

Editorial credit: Pandora Pictures / Shutterstock.com

President Donald Trump revealed Tuesday that his administration has struck an agreement with Pfizer to lower the cost of many of its medications for Medicaid patients. In return, Pfizer secured a three-year exemption from upcoming tariffs on foreign-made pharmaceuticals, which are scheduled to take effect Wednesday. A White House fact sheet said that “the agreement requires Pfizer to offer medicines at a deep discount off the list price when selling directly to American patients.”

As part of the deal, Pfizer will make several of its drugs available through a new government-run website called ‘TrumpRx,’ which the White House described as a direct-to-consumer platform. While the president offered few specifics on how the program will operate, he emphasized that it marks a new approach to lowering drug prices.

Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office: “Today, I’m thrilled to announce that one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturers and one of the best anywhere in the world, Pfizer, has agreed to offer countless prescription medications at major discounts in the United States, a result of the ‘most favored nation’ drug pricing order that we established earlier this year.”  

As part of the announcement, Pfizer also committed to investing $70 billion in research, development, and domestic manufacturing.  Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who was with the president for the announcement, said Mr. Trump’s threat of 100% tariffs on drugs manufactured outside the U.S. motivated his company to take swift action. The president said Pfizer’s drug prices will be lower starting “immediately,” adding that the cost of some Pfizer drugs could see decreases in price of 50%-100%.

According to Pfizer, the price cuts will apply to the majority of its primary care treatments and several brand-name specialty drugs. Discounts will average about 50% but could reach as high as 85%. For example, Pfizer’s menopause treatment Duavee will drop to around $30, the bladder medication Tobias will be reduced to $42, and the eczema ointment Eucrisa will cost $162 under the new program.

Chris Klomp, director of Medicare and deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the reduced prices should become available “soon.” It remains unclear whether the TrumpRx program will be limited exclusively to Medicaid recipients.

Trump also announced that every new drug Pfizer introduces in the U.S. market will follow the same lower pricing model, and that the deal will save American consumers and taxpayers “hundreds of millions of dollars a year,” since Americans have been “subsidizing research and development costs for the entire planet” because of the higher prices they have been paying. The president added that ‘we’re also announcing that moving forward, all new medications introduced by Pfizer to the American market will be sold at the reduced most favored nation cost. So, we’ll be paying essentially what other countries are paying, who have been much lower — much, much lower for many, many years.”

Pfizer, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the country, manufactures a wide array of medicines, including the blood thinner Eliquis, the cancer treatment Ibrance, and its COVID-19 vaccine. (Eliquis was included in the first round of Medicare drug price negotiations under the Biden administration, with the new pricing expected to take effect in 2026.). In May, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to explore tying U.S. drug costs to those paid overseas. Pfizer is the first pharmaceutical company to finalize an agreement under that plan.

Editorial credit: Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock.com