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(Shirleen Guerra, The Center Square)—The Congressional Budget Office has released an analysis of the Biden administration’s newly announced Medicare prescription drug premiums, estimating the new program could cost taxpayers more than $21 billion over three years if implemented.
The analysis comes after House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, and Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a letter to Director Phillip Swagel of the CBO questioning the budgetary impact of this new demonstration program.
A release from Swagel’s department said the increase in federal spending would range from $10 billion to $20 billion in 2025 compared to earlier projections.
“As predicted, the Biden-Harris Inflation Reduction Act not only quelled investment for new cures, but caused Medicare prescription drug plan premiums to skyrocket, and Democrats are scrambling to cover it up before the election,” Arrington said in a press release. “In July, the Biden-Harris CMS scrambled to create a new federal program that will send billions of tax dollars to large health insurance companies to cover up a massive flaw in their so-called Inflation Reduction Act.”
The new average plan bid for a standard Part D coverage increases by 179% for 2025 partly due to an underestimation of federal attributions to the Part D changes, according to the analysis.
Arrington continued, “Today, CBO confirmed that the administration’s election year Hail Mary will cost taxpayers an astounding $7 billion next year alone, and $21 billion over the planned three-year demo, adding to the more than $2 trillion in Biden-Harris executive spending.”
These plans typically expect monthly reinsurance, which means Medicare payments cover part of the costs of prescription drugs when the catastrophic threshold is reached.
Almost 60% of Part D enrollees are through Medicare Advantage plans and receive coverage through MA-PD plans. The rest are covered through what’s known as stand-alone prescription drug plans.
CBO expects the following changes for prescription drug plans in 2025:
- A $15 reduction for monthly PDPs. This would cost a total of $2.9 billion in federal funding.
- Increases in PDPs will be capped at $35 in 2024 and 2025, totaling $1.8 billion in federal funding.
- Risk corridor subsidies will increase for PDPs that have more than 2.5% of bids in 2025, resulting in $250 million of federal funding.
The budget office said the changes to temporary subsidies, combined with risk corridors, will increase federal spending by $5 billion in 2025, with $2 billion in net spending interest until 2034.
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Policies included in the $891 billion Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 have changed the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit that was originally estimated to be $30 million over 10 years beginning in 2025.
This resulted in the sponsors of the Medicare prescription drug plan increasing plan bids and base beneficiary premiums for 2025 while reducing the number of plans that would be available to seniors in 2025.
“When Democrats unilaterally enacted major changes to Medicare two years ago, they set seniors up for new expenses and fewer options,” Grassley said in a release. “This nonpartisan CBO analysis confirms CMS’s cost-shifting plan is a dishonest election year gimmick to cover up those consequences.”
CMS is an acronym for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The program would send federal money to large health insurance companies while falsely lowering the cost for seniors Part D premiums and potentially costing $7 billion in 2025, according to the analysis.
Grassley continued, “Rather than coming to the table and legitimately addressing its partisan mistakes, the Biden-Harris administration threw taxpayer dollars at the problems it created, putting Americans on the hook for tens of billions more dollars.”
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said in a release, “Today’s final guidance for the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program builds off the success of the first 10 negotiated drug prices and continues the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to provide millions of people with Medicare affordable access to innovative therapies.”
This is a contradiction from the reported number taxpayers will pay that was stated in the analysis.
Brooks-LaSure continued, “While saving Medicare and taxpayers billions of dollars, the negotiated prices will also provide people with Medicare a better deal on some of Medicare’s costliest prescription drugs, promoting necessary competition in the market, and ensuring Medicare is strong today and into the future.”
The temporary subsidies, announced in July, affect both those enrolled and the federal payments to Plan D premiums in 2025, 2026 and 2027, though certain policies have yet to be announced for 2026-27, meaning no budgetary estimation for both years.
The budget office said it expects $100 million in 2025 from each organization that controls and collects payments from the government on behalf of Part D plans.
Continuing that most of that would have been paid for by enrollees in the Part D program through premiums, “For that reason, the effect of CMS’s subsidies on plans’ revenues is much smaller than the federal cost. By providing larger federal subsidies to prescription drug plans, the federal payments to Part D plans effectively cover costs that would have been borne by Part D enrollees.”
Jack Smith’s 165-Page Motion Arguing Against Presidential Immunity in Trump J6 Case Unsealed
by The Post Millennial
District Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed on Wednesday a 165-page filing from Biden-Harris administration special counsel Jack Smith regarding upcoming presidential immunity proceedings in the January 6 case against Trump. Smith argued that Trump did not have presidential immunity for the crimes the DOJ alleges Trump committed, as “his scheme was…
Dr. Robert Malone Sounds Alarm on Self-Replicating RNA Vaccines: ‘Japan is the World’s Guinea Pig’
by RAIR Foundation
At the “Rescue the Republic” rally in Washington, D.C., Dr. Robert Malone delivered a sobering message about a new medical development that he reports could have dangerous consequences for global health freedom. Just returning from Tokyo, Dr. Malone warned of the imminent deployment of self-replicating RNA vaccines in Japan. These…
Launching the RIGHT REPORT to Fight the Real Enemies
by Publius
According to Ecclesiastes 10:2, A wise man’s heart inclines him to the right, but a fool’s heart to the left. The implications are stunning when we consider society today. That may not be the original intent of the verse but it clearly applies to the modern world. But what is…
Do You Want Your Prepper Bar Shipped to Your Home or Added to Your IRA?
by Sponsored Post
The massive shift of money being exchanged for physical precious metals started in 2022 with Central Banks across the globe breaking records. The frenzy caught on with large investment firms and financial institutions like BlackRock and JPMorgan in 2023. 2024 has been the year of regular citizens making the same…
No, Endorsing Kamala Harris for President Isn’t What Jesus Would Do
by The Federalist
Christians should reject the backward theology of teachers who twist the character of Christ to punish their political enemies. “Never Trump. This time Harris. Always Jesus.” These were the words not of Taylor Swift or Pete Buttigieg but of Ray Ortlund, a card-carrying member of “Big Eva,” in a recent…
The New Data on Illegal Alien Crime Is Shocking
by John R Lott Jr
(RealClearWire)—The new data on all the criminal noncitizens coming into the U.S. is shocking. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) checks the background of illegal aliens they have in custody. But, the administration’s letter to Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) shows that as of July 21, 2024, ICE let 435,719…
Antony Blinken’s Op-Ed Got Obliterated in Real-Time
by Townhall
For some reason, Joe Biden has been seen as a foreign policy guru, despite everyone thinking he was a clown. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates was apt in his observation, noting that Biden has been wrong on every major foreign policy initiative over the past 40 years. He’s been rolled…
4% of Haiti’s Entire Population Has Entered U.S. Under Biden-Harris – And That’s Not All
by Woke Spy
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been importing an astonishing number of third-world Haitians into the country. That’s right. The administration has been actively arranging and paying for Haitian “migrants” to fly into the U.S. More on this below, but first, we need to prepare the ground….
Meat Substitutes Still a Tiny Sliver of Us Meat Market
by Zero Hedge
Over the past few years, plant-based meat substitutes have come closer and closer to mimicking the real thing, with brands like Beyond Meat having even sussed out how to create fake meat that “bleeds”. But, as Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, after an initial boom, the company has rapidly come…
Box Office Bomb: Netflix Cancellations Explode After Co-Founder Gives Huge Donation to Kamala
by Red State
I admit it, I like Netflix. During the pandemic, when our Overlords here in California demanded we stay in our living rooms for two years, I watched countless terrible movies as well as some quality entertainment—it’s always hit or miss with the streamer. But I may soon vote with my…