WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, April 22, 2026, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared before the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts asked Kennedy about President Trump’s repeated claim that drug prices on the federally run TrumpRx website have been reduced by “300, 400, 500, even 600 percent.”
Kennedy’s response: “President Trump has a different way of calculating, there’s two ways of calculating percentage. If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that’s a 600% reduction.”
Yolanda Tippington, Science Correspondent, would like to address this. Yolanda has a responsibility to the sciences, and mathematics is the oldest and most settled of them, and mathematics has been disrespected in the United States Senate, and Yolanda is going to fix it.
There are not two ways of calculating a percentage decrease. There is one way. The way is: you take the amount of the decrease, divide it by the original value, and multiply by 100. This is the way. This has been the way since percentages were formalized in the 17th century. This was the way before the 17th century when people used fractions instead. This will be the way after everyone involved in this hearing is gone. The way does not change based on who is president. The way does not have a Democratic version and a Republican version. The way is math.
The Math, Which Yolanda Will Now Do
Kennedy’s first example, given to Senator Warren: a $600 drug reduced to $10.
The decrease is $590. The original price is $600. The percentage decrease is ($590 ÷ $600) × 100 = 98.3%. Not 600%. The answer is 98.3%. This is not a matter of interpretation. This is not a matter of perspective. This is not a matter of which way you want to look at it. This is division. Division does not have opinions.
Kennedy’s second example, given the next day in the Oval Office while recounting his exchange with Warren: a $100 drug whose price rises to $600, then drops back to $100.
Kennedy said: “If the drug was $100 and it raised the price to $600, that would be a 600% rise. If it drops from $600 to $100, that’s a 600% savings.”
Both of these statements are wrong. Both. Not one. Both.
$100 to $600: the increase is $500. The percentage increase is ($500 ÷ $100) × 100 = 500%. Not 600%.
$600 to $100: the decrease is $500. The percentage decrease is ($500 ÷ $600) × 100 = 83.3%. Not 600%.
Yolanda would like to note that Kennedy got the math wrong in two different ways on two consecutive days in two different buildings. On Wednesday, he was wrong about the percentage decrease. On Thursday, he was wrong about both the percentage increase AND the percentage decrease. He overcorrected on the second attempt. He went from one error to two errors. The trajectory of mathematical accuracy in the Department of Health and Human Services is negative, and Yolanda can calculate the percentage of that decline correctly because Yolanda knows how percentages work.
What A 600% Decrease Would Actually Mean
A 100% decrease in the price of a drug means the drug is free. The price has been reduced to zero. You pay nothing. The drug company gives you the medication and receives no money. This is a 100% decrease. This is the maximum decrease possible in standard mathematics before the number becomes negative.
A 600% decrease in the price of a $600 drug would mean the new price is negative $3,000. The drug company would pay you $3,000 to take their medication. You would walk into a pharmacy, receive a prescription drug, and leave with $3,000 more than you had when you entered. This is not a savings program. This is not a discount. This is a pharmaceutical company operating as a reverse ATM.
Senator Warren made this point during the hearing. Her exact framing: companies would be paying customers to take their drugs. Warren holds a law degree from Rutgers and taught law at Harvard. Warren can do this math. Warren did this math on camera. Warren’s math was correct. Kennedy’s math was not. The math was done in public, under oath, and the record reflects which participant arrived at the correct answer.
The ‘Mathematical Device,’ Which Is Not A Thing
On Thursday, after repeating the wrong math in the Oval Office, Kennedy described the president’s approach to percentages as a “mathematical device.” He said: “The president used that mathematical device to illustrate the magnitude of the theft that has been happening against our country and our people.”
Yolanda has a degree in science correspondence and has covered peer-reviewed research, FDA proceedings, and vaccine policy. Yolanda has never encountered the phrase “mathematical device” used to describe an incorrect calculation that a person is choosing to use instead of the correct calculation. A mathematical device, in actual mathematics, refers to a tool or technique used to solve problems — things like logarithms, matrices, or differential equations. A mathematical device does not refer to getting the percentage wrong and then calling the wrong answer a device.
What Kennedy described is not a mathematical device. What Kennedy described is a mistake. What Kennedy then did is defend the mistake by asserting that the mistake is an alternative methodology. It is not an alternative methodology. It is a mistake. The mistake has been identified by PolitiFact, which rated the claim Pants on Fire. The mistake has been identified by the Associated Press, which fact-checked the claim in August 2025. The mistake has been identified by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The mistake has been identified by Blue Georgia on X, which posted the correct math and added: “Stay in school, kids.” The mistake has been identified by everyone who has identified it, which is everyone who has looked at it, because the mistake is visible to anyone who completed 7th grade math.
The Pattern, Which Yolanda Must Document
This is not the first time. Trump has claimed drug price reductions of “1,000%, 600%, 500%, 1,500%” in speeches, social media posts, and White House events. He made these claims in an October 2025 Cabinet meeting. He made them during a September 2025 executive order signing. He has been making them since the TrumpRx website launched in February 2026. The Associated Press fact-checked the claims in August 2025 and found them false.
Mariana Socal, an associate professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University, told the AP at the time: “I find it really difficult to translate those numbers into some actual estimates that patients would see at the pharmacy counter.” Yolanda considers this the most diplomatically devastating sentence available to an academic who has been asked to evaluate math that a middle school student would get marked wrong on a quiz.
Kennedy has now endorsed the math. Kennedy has testified, under oath, before the Senate Finance Committee, that the math is an alternative calculation method. Kennedy has called it a device. Kennedy has said there are two ways. There are not two ways. There is one way. The one way produces a number. The number is not 600%. The number has never been 600%. The number will not become 600% because the Secretary of Health and Human Services has described it as a device. Mathematics does not update its operations based on Senate testimony. Mathematics was here before the Senate. Mathematics will be here after the Senate. Mathematics is, if Yolanda is being precise, the only institution in this story that has not changed its position.
What This Means For Drug Prices, Which Is The Part That Actually Matters
The TrumpRx website launched in February 2026 as a platform for Americans to purchase discounted brand-name prescription drugs. The administration has promoted it aggressively. The platform has been scrutinized for the limited number of drugs available and for the fact that cheaper generic alternatives exist at Costco and other pharmacies for many of the listed medications. Warren noted during the hearing that one drug available on TrumpRx for $200 could be purchased at Costco for $16.
The drug prices may be lower than some alternatives. The drug prices may represent real savings for some patients. The drug prices are not 600% lower, because nothing can be 600% lower, because 600% lower does not exist in the number system that humanity has been using since Babylon, and Babylon did not have a different way of calculating percentages, and neither does the president, and neither does the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and PolitiFact has confirmed this, and the AP has confirmed this, and Johns Hopkins has confirmed this, and Yolanda has confirmed this, and the confirmation was not difficult, because the math is not difficult, because the math is percentages, and percentages are the part of math that 12-year-olds do before lunch.
Yolanda Tippington, Science Correspondent, filed this piece on April 24, 2026, with a confidence level of 100% and zero fake sources, because every element is documented. Kennedy’s Senate Finance Committee testimony is from C-SPAN and confirmed by Newsweek, HuffPost, PolitiFact, and the New York Times. Kennedy’s Oval Office remarks are from pool video confirmed by Newsweek and Yahoo News. Warren’s questioning is from C-SPAN. PolitiFact’s Pants on Fire rating is published. The Associated Press fact-check is from August 2025. The Johns Hopkins quote from Mariana Socal is from the AP. The Blue Georgia X post is publicly visible. The correct math — $600 to $10 = 98.3% decrease, $100 to $600 = 500% increase, $600 to $100 = 83.3% decrease — is from mathematics, which has been peer-reviewed for several thousand years and has not been retracted. Gerald the houseplant reviewed this article. Gerald does not calculate percentages. Gerald does photosynthesize, which involves the conversion of light energy to chemical energy at measurable rates that Gerald has never described as a mathematical device. Gerald is fine.