One million prescriptions of the blood thinner Eliquis have reached state Medicaid programs at no charge under the administration’s most-favored-nation drug agreements, according to a White House fact sheet that puts the number of participating manufacturers at 26. The claim comes from a fact sheet dated September 18, 2026, announcing lower drug prices for all 50 state Medicaid programs, and the one million figure is an administration claim that the document does not break down by period or payer.
The prescriptions are Medicaid prescriptions, not Medicare prescriptions, and the fact sheet does not describe them as filled by seniors. The deals themselves reach consumers through two separate channels, state Medicaid rebates and a retail website, and the sheet reports different results for each.
One million Eliquis prescriptions, counted for Medicaid
The White House fact sheet states that Medicaid programs have already benefited from one million free prescriptions of Eliquis through the President’s most-favored-nation deals. Eliquis is the only drug named in that sentence. The sheet gives no start date for the count, no statement of who paid for the medication, and no explanation of what “free” means in a program where states normally pay for drugs and then collect rebates.
The one million figure is therefore best read as the administration’s own tally, attributed to the White House, and cumulative, with no period stated. It is not a count of seniors, and the sheet does not break out prescriptions by age or by Medicare enrollment.
The 26 manufacturers and the 89 percent market share
As of September 18, 2026, the fact sheet says the administration has agreements with 26 pharmaceutical manufacturers covering 89 percent of the branded drug market. It names them: Pfizer, AstraZeneca, EMD Serono, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck, Novartis, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie, Regeneron, Alcon, Astellas Pharma, BeOne Medicines, BridgeBio, CSL, Kyowa Kirin, Sun Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals and UCB.
The 89 percent describes the share of the branded market held by the signing companies, not the share of drugs that are discounted. A second White House fact sheet, dated October 2, repeats the figure as 26 deals covering roughly 90 percent of the branded market, which supports the manufacturer count as current at the start of October. The September timeline shows how the list grew: the first agreement, with Pfizer, on September 30, 2025, nine more on December 19, 2025, and nine additional agreements on August 31, 2026.
How the GENEROUS model delivers the lower price
The Medicaid result runs through the GENEROUS Medicaid Payment Model, in which participating manufacturers provide rebates to state Medicaid programs on expensive brand-name drugs so that final prices do not exceed most-favored-nation prices, meaning the lowest prices paid in other developed countries. The fact sheet says the model covers hundreds of drugs across classes including oncology, diabetes care and asthma, and it lists categories, not a drug-by-drug list.
The model is voluntary for states. In its announcement of the model, HHS quoted CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz saying the GENEROUS Model “will help ensure state Medicaid programs are paying a fair and reasonable price for prescription drugs.” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said that by bringing most-favored-nation pricing to Medicaid the administration is driving down drug costs and protecting care for the most vulnerable. HHS gave the scale of the problem as Medicaid prescription drug spending above $100 billion in 2024, or $60 billion after existing rebates, a $10 billion increase from 2022.
Where seniors appear: the GLP-1 figure
The fact sheet does speak about seniors, but in a different paragraph and about a different drug class. It says senior citizens gained access to GLP-1 medications for obesity treatment at $50 monthly in July 2026, and that within two months 600,000 seniors had saved $216 million in total. That is a savings figure, also reported by the White House, and it is separate from the one million Eliquis prescriptions.
The sheet also reports that patients have saved more than $700 million on medicines through TrumpRx.gov since its February 2026 launch. The site describes itself as delivering “the lowest prescription prices in the world for Americans” and lets visitors search drug prices by zip code. Those retail savings are a third result and are not the Medicaid count.
What the fact sheet leaves open
Several details the one million claim depends on are absent from the document. It gives no period for the count, no figure for how many Medicaid enrollees received the drug, and no statement of what the participating states or the federal government paid. The sheet does not say whether any of the one million prescriptions went to people who also have Medicare, and it does not say how many distinct patients the figure represents, a count that would show whether one million describes one million patients or repeated fills.
The 26 manufacturers, the 89 percent market share and the one million prescriptions all come from the same White House document. Independent confirmation of the prescription count was not found in the sources read for this article, so the figure stands as the administration’s claim, dated September 18, 2026.
Drug costs under Medicare, apart from Medicaid
The fact sheet counts Medicaid prescriptions and a separate group of seniors on a GLP-1 program, which leaves Medicare drug coverage on its own cost rules. Part D plan members face a yearly spending limit and a separate appeal route when a drug needs prior approval.
The Medicare Cost & Coverage Protection Kit includes the new Part D out-of-pocket cap and the prior-authorization appeal steps.
Click here to see the Part D cap and the prior-authorization appeal steps →
This article was prepared with AI assistance and verified against the cited White House and HHS pages before it ran.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
