{"id":38485,"date":"2026-04-22T20:42:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T20:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/38485\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T20:42:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T20:42:17","slug":"senate-hearing-rfk-jr-says-trump-has-different-way-of-calculating-percentages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/38485\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Hearing: RFK Jr. Says Trump Has ‘Different Way’ of Calculating Percentages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Wednesday that President Donald Trump<\/a> uses a \u201cdifferent way\u201d of calculating percentages, offering an explanation for the president\u2019s claims about sharp prescription drug price cuts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking during a U.S. Senate hearing<\/a>, Kennedy said Trump has described that “TrumpRx,” a federal government website designed to provide Americans with discounted prices<\/a> on brand-name prescription drugs, cuts the price of a $600 drug to $10 as a \u201c600% reduction.”<\/p>\n

Kennedy, who appeared before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday morning, said \u201cPresident Trump has a different way of calculating, there\u2019s two ways of calculating percentages. If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that\u2019s a 600 percent reduction.\u201d He acknowledged that Trump’s math departs from standard calculations.<\/p>\n

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren<\/a> of Massachusetts pushed back on that framing, noting that under conventional arithmetic the price drop Kennedy described would amount to a reduction of about 98 percent.<\/p>\n

Warren said using inflated percentage figures could mislead patients about the actual savings they might see, pressing administration officials to clarify how drug pricing claims are calculated and communicated to the public.<\/p>\n

“Which I think means companies should be paying you to take their drugs,” Warren quipped about Trump’s “600 percent” calculations.<\/p>\n

What Is TrumpRx?<\/p>\n

Trump has aggressively promoted his administration\u2019s \u201cTrump Rx\u201d initiative <\/a>as a breakthrough in lowering prescription drug costs, frequently touting what he describes as unprecedented price reductions. <\/p>\n

Trump Rx centers on a government\u2011run website that directs patients to discounted prices negotiated with pharmaceutical manufacturers under so\u2011called \u201cmost favored nation\u201d agreements, which aim to align U.S. prices with the lowest paid in other developed countries. <\/p>\n

The administration says the program allows consumers, particularly those paying cash or facing high out\u2011of\u2011pocket costs, to access brand\u2011name medications at sharply lower prices without using insurance.<\/p>\n

\"\"Has the Trump Administration Cut Prescription Drug Prices?<\/p>\n

Since unveiling the program early this year, Trump has told supporters and lawmakers that drug prices<\/a> are falling by \u201c300, 400, 500, even 600 percent,\u201d language he has repeated in speeches, social media posts and White House events highlighting the effort.<\/p>\n

A fact check by The Associated Press (AP) in August 2025 found that to be false, saying that if drug prices had been reduced by more than 100 percent, patients would be getting paid to take the medications.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it really difficult to translate those numbers into some actual estimates that patients would see at the pharmacy counter,\u201d Mariana Socal, an associate professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University who studies the U.S. pharmaceutical market, told AP at the time.<\/p>\n

During Wednesday’s hearing, Warren accused the Trump administration of misleading consumers, pointing to one drug available on TrumpRx for $200, compared to $16 at Costco. <\/p>\n

Kennedy said Congress had more power to negotiate savings than HHS, telling Warren: “We did this because you refused to do it.”<\/p>\n

Warren refuted that, telling him: “They\u2019ve got a 1 out of 4 chance of paying more at TrumpRx than they would if they went to Costco.”<\/p>\n

Democrats on the finance committee remained skeptical of the deals the Trump administration made with drug manufacturers to sell their products through TrumpRx, with Warren alleging that they made millions in tariff relief by working with the website. <\/p>\n

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, ranking member on the committee, pressed Kennedy on publishing the written agreements with pharmaceutical companies. The secretary said he would not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Wednesday that President Donald Trump uses a \u201cdifferent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[367,18752,12,75,24915,706,24958,15967,24959,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-38485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-donald-trump-jr","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-department-of-health-and-human-services","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-donald-trump-jr","12":"tag-drug-prices","13":"tag-elizabeth-warren","14":"tag-pharmaceutical-companies","15":"tag-robert-f-kennedy-jr","16":"tag-senate-hearing","17":"tag-trump"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116450305337100940","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}