If you're a conventional presidential candidate, it'd be pretty embarrassing if somebody proved that the prescription drug savings you're promising are wildly unrealistic. So unrealistic, in fact, that the total amount you're telling people they will save is larger than the overall prescription drug market.
But then again, Donald Trump is far from a conventional presidential candidate, so it'd be unwise to predict that his latest whopper will doom his quixotic journey to the GOP nomination.
The billionaire has repeatedly claimed that he would save Medicare $300 billion on prescription drugs by negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies.
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"We pay about $300 billion more than we are supposed to, than if we negotiated the price," he said at a rally earlier this month. "So there's $300 billion on day one we solve."
But according to the Congressional Budget Office, total Medicare spending on prescription drugs in 2014 amounted to less than half of that figure: $148 billion. And total U.S. spending on prescription meds amounted to $298 billion.
Other candidates have similarly proposed allowing the government to negotiate drug prices, but their projected savings have been more modest, to say the least.
Bernie Sanders, for instance, has proposed a plan that he estimates will save taxpayers between $230 billion and $541 billion over 10 years. Although Hillary Clinton has advocated for the same policy, she has not suggested any specific savings.
Other Republicans, including Marco Rubio, who increasingly appears to be the leading alternative to Trump for the GOP nomination, have stopped short of supporting allowing the federal government to negotiate directly with drug companies. And House Republican leadership, including Speaker Paul Ryan, is also opposed.
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