Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told a Senate committee on Wednesday that President Donald Trump has “a different way of calculating percentages” — defending the administration’s claim that its prescription drug program cuts prices by up to 600%, a figure mathematicians and lawmakers say is simply wrong.
Appearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Kennedy faced questions from Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the pricing accuracy of TrumpRx, a government-run website the administration bills as offering the world’s lowest prices on prescription drugs. When Warren challenged Trump’s repeated claims of dramatic price cuts, Kennedy replied: “President Trump has a different way of calculating percentages. If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that’s a 600% reduction.”
It is not. A drop from $600 to $10 is a 98.33% reduction by standard arithmetic — (590 ÷ 600) × 100. A true 600% reduction would require drug manufacturers to pay consumers $3,000 to take a $600 medication. The figure Kennedy cited — 60 — is the ratio between the two prices, not a percentage reduction.
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Trump has used the same math to tout banner numbers for months. “Drug prices are coming down 400%, 200%, 600%, numbers that nobody’s ever seen before,” he said repeatedly, including at the launch of TrumpRx, where he cited Novo Nordisk‘s reduction of Ozempic from over $1,000 to $199 as a signature example.
“Which I think means companies should be paying you to take their drugs,” she said. She also challenged the broader premise of TrumpRx: “If you’re buying a drug on TrumpRx, there is a more than one in four chance that Trump’s discount is actually a price hike.” She cited TrumpRx listing Protonix at $200 while Costco sells the same drug for $16.
Kennedy pushed back, saying Warren conflated brand-name drugs with generics. He did not address the math.
TrumpRx operates under a “most favored nation” pricing framework, directing patients to prices negotiated with manufacturers to align US costs with the lowest paid in other developed countries. The administration says the program benefits patients paying cash or facing high out-of-pocket costs.
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