RFK Jr. Defends Trump's '600% Drug Price Cut' Math at Senate Hearing

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended President Trump’s claim that prescription drug prices have been cut by as much as 600%, telling lawmakers the president has a different way of calculating percentages. The exchange happened during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the HHS budget.

What Kennedy actually said

Pressed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Trump’s repeated claim of triple-digit percentage reductions, Kennedy said “President Trump has a different way of calculating, there’s two ways of calculating percentages. If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that’s a 600 percent reduction.”

Warren pushed back, noting that under conventional arithmetic the price drop Kennedy described would amount to a reduction of about 98 percent. “Which I think means companies should be paying you to take their drugs,” Warren quipped about the 600 percent calculation.

The math, for the record

Well-established mathematical principles have only one way to calculate percentage change, and a drug reduced from $600 to $10 represents a 98.3% decrease, not a 600% decrease. A reduction cannot exceed 100% unless the seller is paying the buyer.

Since last year, Trump has asserted that he has cut or will cut prescription drug prices by numbers like “500%,” “600%,” “1,000%,” “1,400%” and “1,500%,” which is mathematically impossible, since a decline of 100% would mean drugs had become cost-free, so a decline of hundreds of percent would mean Americans would be getting paid substantial money to acquire their medications. That isn’t happening.

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TrumpRx and the credibility problem

TrumpRx centers on a government-run website that directs patients to discounted prices negotiated with pharmaceutical manufacturers under so-called “most favored nation” agreements, which aim to align U.S. prices with the lowest paid in other developed countries. The administration says the program allows consumers, particularly those paying cash or facing high out-of-pocket costs, to access brand-name medications at sharply lower prices without using insurance.

The credibility problem is real for traders watching pharma. During the hearing, Warren pointed to one drug available on TrumpRx for $200, compared to $16 at Costco. A March report from the Center for American Progress found that the president’s prescription drug website offered genuinely lower prices on “exactly one” of the 54 medications listed, and nearly one-third of the drugs available on TrumpRx have generic alternatives that were cheaper than what was being offered, with no mention on the site.

Why this matters for the pharma trade

The “most favored nation” framework remains the policy lever that actually moves pharma cash flows, not the rhetoric. The Oval Office event on Thursday centered on a deal Trump had made with the biotech company Regeneron that involved drug price reductions for some Americans, along with tariff relief for the corporation. Tariff relief in exchange for price concessions is the template to watch.

Reuters reported in December that at least 350 branded medications are set for price hikes in 2026, including vaccines against Covid, RSV, and shingles, as well as the blockbuster cancer treatment Ibrance. That sets up a messaging collision with the administration’s discount narrative.

Options market and stocks to watch

Watch for headline-driven moves in pharma names tied to TrumpRx and MFN deals:

• REGN: Regeneron is the latest to strike a price-cut-for-tariff-relief deal; watch for follow-through flow as terms get scrutinized.
• PFE: Pfizer makes Ibrance, flagged among 2026 price hike candidates, putting it in the crosshairs of the administration’s rhetoric.
• LLY and NVO: GLP-1 leaders remain a focal point for any expansion of TrumpRx pricing pressure.
• MRK: Watch for vol around any MFN-style announcement, given the size of its branded portfolio.
• CVS: Pharmacy and PBM exposure makes it sensitive to any direct-to-consumer pricing shift.

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