The Biden-Harris administration held a campaign event for the media today to claim that their Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) legislation has successfully lowered drug prices for seniors through “negotiation” with pharmaceutical companies, prompting a stark rebuttal from Gerard Scimeca, chairman of Consumer Action for a Strong Economy (CASE).
“Today, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris celebrated their signature achievement in office – deceiView Postving America’s seniors and setting Medicare on a path toward rationing medication and skyrocketing healthcare costs.
“The IRA has always been a trojan horse to gut Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars to fund items on the Administration’s far-left wish list, subsidizing renewable energy, especially. The IRA’s shifty accounting deliberately pushes the federal government’s Medicare responsibilities costs onto the private sector, which has already realized premium increases on seniors of 21 percent from 2023 to 2024. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) plans to hide these massive price increases from seniors until after the election through billions in subsidies into a contrived “demonstration program” for which it has not even sought approval. But the Administration cannot hide the IRA’s substantial price increases from seniors forever, who will be unhappy and irate when the bill comes due.”
Scimeca noted CMS has acknowledged that by design, the IRA forces insurance plans to manage costs by approving fewer drugs for patients, which will result in drug rationing.
“Biden-Harris aren’t telling the public the truth about the higher costs baked into the IRA, or the fact that it’s government-set pricing on pharmaceuticals is already devastatingly impacting investment into medical research and development (R&D). So far, 65 new and ongoing drug projects for life-saving treatments and therapies have been canceled, devastating to medical innovation and the millions of Americans who stand to benefit from ongoing medical breakthroughs.
“If Biden-Harris were honest, their event today would not be a victory lap celebration but a wake, mourning the victims of their hit-and-run on Medicare that will result in higher costs on seniors, drug rationing, and fewer improvements due to stifled innovation into future biopharmaceutical treatments and cures.”
