Biden-Harris Did the Thing Trump Said He Was Doing
The Biden-Harris administration is announcing cost savings for 54 prescription drugs via the Medicare Rebate Program thanks to President Biden's IRA, for which not a single Republican voted.
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When Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act without a single Republican voting for it, she couldn’t have foreseen that she would be the presidential candidate when cost savings for 54 drugs under the IRA’s Medicare Rebate Program kicked in.
But here we are.
Monday morning, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing cost savings for 54 prescription drugs thanks to the Medicare Rebate Program established by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law on August 16, 2022, and marked what the Department of Treasury calls, “one of the largest investments in the American economy, energy security, and climate that Congress has made in the nation's history.”
In practical terms, this means that some people with Medicare will pay less for some Part B drugs because the drug’s price increased faster than the rate of inflation, and under the IRA, Biden made them negotiate drug price rebates for those drugs.
This will impact over 822,000 people and will cover drugs used to treat conditions like cancer and pneumonia. The Part B coinsurance rate prices will be lower from October 1, 2024 – December 31, 2024.
The list of drugs impacted is here.
The IRA has already been decreasing some drug costs. Since April 1, 2023, people with Medicare have saved on the costs of over 100 drugs. In a factsheet shared with us, the administration broke down the potential savings, noting that in August, the Biden-Harris Administration “announced it had reached agreements for new, lower prices for all 10 drugs selected under the first round of the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation program. If these new prices had been in effect last year, Medicare would have saved an estimated $6 billion. Once these prices take effect in 2026, people with Medicare Part D are expected to save an estimated $1.5 billion in total out-of-pocket costs.”
Yeah, saving people on Medicare an estimated $1.5 billion is a BFD. This will be life-changing for people on fixed incomes.
Additionally, there will more savings starting in 2025, when all people with Medicare Part D will benefit from a $2,000 cap on annual out-of-pocket prescription drug costs. Already in 2024, the administration says some enrollees “who have high drug costs are already seeing their annual out-of-pocket costs capped at about $3,500.”
No other industrialized nation has the out-of-control costs for prescription drugs. It’s a testament to the greed of corporations that Americans can go broke just trying to pay for essential medication. It shouldn’t be this way, and these changes are a great step in the right direction.
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