Friday, March 11, 2016

Donald Trump Got Medicare Wrong Again Last Night

Last night, at CNN's Republican debate, Donald Trump said this during a long exchange with Senator Marco Rubio about Medicare.

BASH: Mr. Trump, Senator Rubio says your numbers don't add up. What's your response? Senator Rubio says that your numbers don't add up. What's your response, Mr. Trump?
TRUMP: Well, I don't know if he's saying that. Look, I'm just saying very simply we have a country that I've never seen anything like it. I've been going over budgets and looking at budgets. We don't bid things out. We don't bid out, as an example, the drug industry, pharmaceutical industry. They don't go out to bid. They just pay almost as if you walk into a drug store. That's what they're paying.
And the reason is they have a fantastic lobby. They take care of all of the senators, the Congressmen. They have great power and they don't bid out. The military is never properly bid. When we go out to military bids, it's not properly bid. And the people that really sell us the product are oftentimes the product we don't want, only because that particular company has political juice, OK?

Is it true that drug companies don't bid? Sort of, but Medicare certainly isn't paying what a consumer walking into a drugstore would. Here's a good summary from The National Committee To Preserve Medicare & Social Security:

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