Congress questioned HHS Secretary Kennedy this week on a whole bunch of issues: Vaccine misinformation, health care cuts, and cancer research cuts. I had the chance to ask RFK Jr. about TrumpRx and these “massive” deals for patients that he’s been boasting about. Right after Trump and the Republicans cut health care for millions of families, the president launched his TrumpRx website as the answer for Americans who were worried about health care costs. The website invites patients to “find the world's lowest prices on prescription drugs.” He claimed that TrumpRx has reduced drug prices by as much as 600%. 600%. In that instance, drug companies would be paying us to take their drugs, which doesn’t make any sense. Health Secretary Kennedy explained that President Trump has a “different way of calculating percentages” and that there’s “two ways” of calculating percentages — saying “if you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that's a 600% reduction.” What! So we’re just re-inventing math now? In his own example, that would be a 98.33% reduction. But 600% sounds a whole lot flashier than 98.33% — if that’s even true. But there’s another layer to this: TrumpRx is actually steering patients to buy more expensive brand-name drugs to pad the profits of Big Pharma companies. Let’s do some real math here: There’s a heartburn medication called Protonix that is currently sold for $200 on TrumpRx. But a generic version of the same drug sold at Costco is just $16. In the real world, $200 is a heck of a lot more expensive than $16. But TrumpRx is not promoting the cheaper option — just the more expensive brand-name drug. Promoting brand-name drugs over cheaper generic options of the same exact drug is a tried-and-true Big Pharma tactic to get people to buy more expensive drugs. The so-called “discount” is actually a price hike. Too often, the TrumpRx website is nothing more than another Trump scam — just like Trump University and Trump Steaks, and just about everything else associated with his name. This time they’re targeting and tricking sick Americans with fake drug “discounts” that actually help Big Pharma’s bottom line — and I’m not standing for it. If they cared at all about taking on Big Pharma, they wouldn’t use these shady tactics to lie about drug “savings” on TrumpRx. If they cared at all about making health care more affordable, they wouldn't have kicked millions of Americans off their health insurance. I’m going to keep exposing the truth, forcing transparency and oversight, and fighting to lower health care costs for patients. Thanks for being a part of this, Elizabeth  |
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