MAGA Math
Boru
Quote:Dr Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, got himself into a desperate mathematical tangle attempting to defend President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on on Wednesday.
“Cutting drug prices by 400 percent, anything over 100 percent, wouldn’t that effectively make them free? Is that a realistic goal from the president?” Welker asked Dr Oz.
Attempting to mount an explanation, the administrator said: “The president does the calculation by saying, ‘OK, if a drug was $100 and you reduce it to $50, it’s 100 percent cheaper because you’re taking $50 off and left with only $50, so the amount you took off the price is equal to the amount that’s left. They’re equal so it’s 100 percent.’”
The physician struggled with precisely the same calculation at a White House press conference on October 16, held to promote a new deal on fertility drugs, when he said at one stage in his address: “You’ll notice, President Trump, these are discounted from $242 to $10.
“I don’t know what the math is on that. We can’t even calculate it. It’s too high to calculate.”
A reduction from $242 to $10 is 95.87 percent.
Boru
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