Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday defended President Donald Trump's faulty calculations on prescription drug prices by offering some bad math of his own. Trump has previously claimed he would reduce prescription drug prices by “1,000%, 600%, 500%, 1,500%,” a statement criticized as mathematically impossible. As HuffPost's Ed Mazza explained, reducing a price by 100% makes the drug free; reducing it by more than 100% would result in negative costs, with drug companies paying patients to take medication.
Kennedy's Attempted Explanation
During an Oval Office meeting on Thursday, Kennedy tried to clarify Trump's flawed use of percentages. He recounted a Democratic senator ridiculing Trump's math, saying it was impossible to drop a drug's cost by 600%. Kennedy responded: “If the drug was $100 and it raised the price to $600, that would be a 600% rise. Well, if it drops from $600 to $100, that’s a 600% savings.”
However, both calculations are inaccurate. A price increase from $100 to $600 represents a $500 increase, or a 500% rise. Conversely, a drop from $600 to $100 is a $500 discount, or roughly an 83% reduction. Kennedy's statement effectively endorsed Trump's incorrect interpretation, which the HHS official characterized as a “mathematical device.”
Similar Defense in Senate Hearing
On Wednesday, Kennedy used a similar explanation when Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) questioned him about Trump's drug price statements during a Senate hearing. Kennedy said: “President Trump has a different way of calculating … there’s two ways of calculating percentage. If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that’s a 600% reduction.” In reality, that would be approximately a 98% reduction.
Trump himself echoed this sentiment on Thursday, stating: “There are two ways of calculating it, but either way, it doesn’t make any difference. Whether it’s 60, 70, or 80% nobody’s ever heard of it. But it’s also 500, 600, 700, depending on the way you want to look at it, the way you word the calculation.”
Administration's Drug Price Initiatives
These statements come as the administration promotes its efforts to slash prescription drug prices. The Oval Office event centered on a deal Trump made with biotech company Regeneron, involving drug price reductions for some Americans and tariff relief for the corporation. In February, the administration launched the TrumpRx website, pitched as a way for consumers to purchase lower-cost drugs directly. However, the platform has faced scrutiny for its limited drug selection and the availability of cheaper generic alternatives elsewhere.
