Trump Defends Mathematically Impossible Claims on Medicine Prices
Donald Trump promised Americans a ‘tremendous’ fall in medicine prices soon after his return to the White House — insisting on multiple occasions that some drugs were now “300% to 600%” cheaper. The President has frequently repeated this claim and appears to be unfazed by critics or even mathematics. Members of his Cabinet appear to agree with the bizarre assertion and Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. even offered a ‘logical’ explanation on Thursday. The POTUS defended his mathematically impossible claims during an event on Thursday with a simple reason: “There are two ways of calculating”. Trump did not offer a clear alternative to arithmetic as he doubled down on claims of a 600% dip in medicine prices. “It’s reduced by 500%, 600%….we also sometimes say 50%, 60%,” he added. Trump called it a “different kind of calculation” that could go up to “70, 80 and 90%”. “People understand that better. But they’re two ways of calculating…either way, it doesn’t make any difference,” he continued. For the mathematically challenged among us, it would be impossible for a company to cut prices by more than 100% unless manufacturers were dropping prices to zero and then presumably paying consumers to use their product. And while that would seem a tad counterproductive, Health Secretary RFK Jr had fielded the exact question a day earlier. “He has a different way of calculating…If you have a $600 drug, and you reduce it to $10, that’s a 600 percent reduction,” Kennedy told during a congressional hearing somewhat incorrectly. The remarks came after Senator Elizabeth Warren flagged the frequent and hyperbolic claims that the TrumpRx website offered prescription drugs at discounts of 400% to 1,500%. “Which I think means companies should be paying you to take their drugs,” she had noted. The President has frequently touted his efforts to reduce medicine prices. He had also launched the ‘TrumpRx.gov website to offer subsidised medical aid. “You know, we’ve cut drug prices by 1,200, 1,300 and 1,400, 1,500%…I don’t mean 50%. I mean 14- 1,500%” he told reporters in August last year. “We have lowered the price of drugs by 50, 60, 70, and 80 and 90%. And there’s another way of figuring, you could also say, depending on the way you phrased the statement, 400, 500, 600, 700%…Nobody’s ever seen anything like it,” the president added in January this year.
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