‘Transparently Crooked’: Biden-Harris Admin Might Just Be Buying Votes With New Medicare Changes, Experts Say
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced in September that it would be reducing certain Medicare prescription drug premiums in what experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation called a ploy to buy votes before the November election.
Enrollees in the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit are slated to have lower average monthly premiums for their pharmaceutical drugs next year due to the Biden-Harris administration pouring billions into subsidies for insurers, with premiums set to fall $7.45 from $53.95 in 2024 to $46.50 in 2025, according to a CMS press release. The move by the Biden-Harris administration is a political bribe aimed at securing the votes of Americans aged 65 and over who have the highest voter turnout historically, experts told the DCNF.
“The $2,000 dollar cap [on Medicare out-of-pocket prescription drug costs] as well as other Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provisions were slated to triple the cost of Part D,” Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, told the DCNF. “If millions of senior citizens see their premiums triple, they’d go to the polls and vote out those responsible. The Biden administration wanted to avert that.”
Today, Chairman @RepArrington, @ChuckGrassley, @MikeCrapo, @CathyMcMorris, and @RepJasonSmith sent a letter to @USCBO requesting a full budgetary analysis of @CMSGov’s plan for a new Medicare Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration program that invites an unchecked…
— House Budget GOP (@housebudgetGOP) August 26, 2024
Premiums were slated to rise in 2025, largely due to a $2,000 cap on Medicare out-of-pocket prescription drug costs enacted as part of provisions in President Joe Biden’s IRA that go into effect next year. To stave off the increase, the White House set up a “stabilization” demonstration program for 2025 that will offer Medicare Part D insurers $15 dollars a month per enrollee in exchange for keeping premiums roughly stable, an initiative that is estimated to cost taxpayers $5 billion in 2025. (Read more from “‘Transparently Crooked’: Biden-Harris Admin Might Just Be Buying Votes With New Medicare Changes, Experts Say” HERE)
