Mehmet Oz and arithmetic were like oil and water during an at-times confusing interview with NBC News.
Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, made an eyebrow-raising effort to defend Donald Trump’s impossible claims about having cut prescription drug prices by as much as “1,500 percent.”
“Cutting drug prices by…anything over 100 percent wouldn’t that effectively make them free?” Meet the Press anchor Kristen Welker asked after rolling several clips of Trump, 79, talking about how much he has lowered costs. “Is that a realistic goal from the president?”
To the former television host, it made perfect sense.
“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,” Oz, 65, said with a straight face. “They’re equal, so it’s 100 percent.”
Welker obviously wasn’t buying it. “He said ‘1,500 percent!’” she emphasized, skeptical of Oz’s reasoning—or lack thereof.
Oz’s next response didn’t do much to quell her concerns.
“Well, if you take a drug that is $200 or $240, like we did last week, and reduce it to $10, those are the numbers you’re talking about,” he insisted.
In reality, the price reduction in each scenario would be 95 percent and about 95.8 percent, respectively.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast. Neither did the White House.
During the interview, Oz was also asked about how the Affordable Care Act tax credits could expire next year without legislation to fund the federal government. Congressional Democrats have been seeking to reaffirm those credits.
“Do you think they should be extended so that millions of Americans don’t lose their healthcare coverage?” Welker, 49, asked.
“I wouldn’t extend the subsidies the way they were created for COVID,” Oz replied. “If we want to have a serious improvement of the ACA, which…provides insurance to those folks just getting off Medicaid before they enter commercial insurance, then we ought to address it more robustly.”
Oz claimed that a much higher percentage—“95 percent”—of people are using the ACA with government subsidies than had been anticipated when the law was passed.
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