The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced in September that it would lower premiums for some Medicare prescription drugs, but experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation said that in November, It is said to be a ploy to buy votes before the election.
Enrollees in Medicare Part D prescription drug benefits will see their average monthly drug premiums lower next year thanks to significant funding from the Biden-Harris administration. billions of This will be a subsidy to insurance companies, and premiums will be reduced by $7.45, from $53.95 in 2024 to $46.50 in 2025. According to Go to CMS press release. The Biden-Harris administration’s move is a political bribe aimed at securing the votes of Americans over 65, who have the highest approval ratings. Voter turnout Historically, experts told DCNF. (Related article: Automakers reverse idealistic electric vehicle targets despite billions in Biden-Harris subsidies)
“$2,000 cap [on Medicare out-of-pocket prescription drug costs] “Like other Inflation Control Act (IRA) provisions, the cost of Part D was scheduled to triple,” Michael Cannon, director of health policy research at the Cato Institute, told DCNF. “If millions of seniors saw their premiums triple, they would go to the polls and vote out the people in charge. That’s what the Biden administration wanted to avoid.”
Today, Chairman @RepArrington, @Chuck Grassley, @MikeCrapo, @CathyMcMorrisand @RepJasonSmith I sent a letter to @USCBO request a complete budget analysis of @CMSGov‘s new Medicare Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration Program plan invites unchecked people…
— House Budget Republicans (@housebudgetGOP) August 26, 2024
Premiums were scheduled to rise in 2025 due to a $2,000 cap on Medicare out-of-pocket prescription drug costs enacted as part of President Joe Biden’s IRA provisions. take effect next year. To stem the rise, the White House has taken “stabilization” measures demonstration program Toward 2025 offer Medicare Part D insurers pay $15 per month per enrollee in exchange for roughly stable premiums, an effort estimated to cost taxpayers $5 billion in 2025.
“This is completely political,” Joel White, founder and CEO of healthcare consulting firm Horizon Government Affairs, told DCNF. “They are buying up premiums to buy votes.”
Older people have the highest Voter turnout Nearly 80% of adults 60 and older voted in 2020, the highest percentage of the total population in any presidential election since 1996. The U.S. elderly population is also growing faster than any other age group in four key battleground states: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Arizona – Ranks in the top 20 for percentage of population aged 65 and older.
“[Democrats] Insurance premiums have not been reduced. They hide their premiums,” Cannon told DCNF. “This ‘demonstration project’ is just a way to funnel $5 billion to Medicare Part D insurers to keep enrollees from paying less in premiums than they did this year. The White House They’re not lowering premiums by cutting costs, they’re doing it by shifting those costs to taxpayers rather than enrollees…that’s Democratic health care policy, and Democratic health care policy is Democratic health care policy. It has been going on since time immemorial. [Harry] Truman Administration: Hiding medical costs by shipping them to taxpayers. ”
The Biden-Harris Administration issued the following statement: press release Monday touted the company’s record on prescription drug costs, saying, “While Big Pharma made record profits, Americans paid for the industry’s price increases. No more. My method to curb inflation. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris’s “New Progress” economic plan. said “Harris took on Big Pharma with President Biden and won.”
“The demo is[nstration program] “This is a Band-Aid rather than addressing the underlying wound. The IRA has fundamentally rewritten the law in a way that fundamentally destabilizes the market,” White told DCNF.
The Biden-Harris administration has taken a number of steps aimed at lowering drug prices, including a new law that would give it the power to confiscate patents from drug companies as long as the price of their protected products is deemed too high. This includes proposing guidelines in 2023. Funded by the federal government.
CMS’s announcement comes nearly four years after the Democratic Member of Parliament and the press attacked Former President Donald Trump September 2020 suggestion A plan to give 33 million seniors $200 discount cards for prescription drugs, described by the New York Times as “an election-eve promise with questionable legal authority,” was proposed by Democratic New Jersey Representative Frank. Palone make a call The move is a “blatant political gamble.”
“The New York Times is praising this bogus demonstration plan even though everything is pretty clearly distorted,” Cannon told DCNF. “This effort is fundamentally anti-democratic and unconstitutional.”
“The sudden decision is an attempt to gain support from this particularly large voting bloc,” Peter Earle, senior economist at the National Bureau of Economic Research, told DCNF. “Repeated efforts to eliminate or reduce student loan debt and large donations to climate change activists called the ‘Reducing Inflation Act’ are previous examples of similar behavior… Of course, politically motivated Distribution is a pillar in Washington, D.C. But it has escalated dramatically over the past four years, as evidenced by both the Biden administration’s debt and deficits.
The White House and Harris campaign did not respond to requests for comment from DCNF.
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