Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended President Donald Trump’s previous claims that he had brought drug prices down by hundreds of percentage points, but his explanation only added to the confusion.
Trump has routinely boasted that his policies have sent drug prices plummeting by a massive margin, sometimes claiming they’ve dropped by over 1,000%. Speaking from the Oval Office on Thursday, Kennedy backed up the president with a questionable calculation.
“A Democratic senator claimed it’s mathematically impossible to have a drug drop by 600%. I said, ‘Well, if the drug was $100 and it raises to $600, that would be a 600% rise. If it drops from $600 to $100, that’s a 600% savings,’” Kennedy said, garnering a verbal agreement from the president.
Many observers were quick to point out that the calculation was incorrect. To start, an increase from $100 to $600 would be a 500% increase,
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