Report: Inflation Reduction Act sent seniors' health care costs surging
The Center Square ^ | 30 Oct 2024 | Shirleen Guerra
Posted on 11/1/2024, 5:34:27 AM by blueplum
(The Center Square) – Medicare premiums and senior citizens' prescription drug costs have surged since passage of the $891 billion Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, according to data compiled by an advocate for seniors on the federal health care program.
The legislation promised financial relief for millions of people with Medicare by expanding benefits, lowering drug costs, and strengthening Medicare for future seniors. Medicare Is for Seniors' "Misery Index," as the report is known, says prescription drug costs instead have risen nationally by 31%, leaving seniors with new expenses and fewer options. Those costs will rise again under the new Plan B premiums....
As previously reported by The Center Square, the new average plan bid for a standard Part D coverage will increase by 179% for 2025, partly due to an underestimation of federal attributions to the Part D changes. ...
... the Inflation Reduction Act makes Medicare Drug Plans offer costly new benefits and siphons funds from Medicare into the federal treasury for its funding, most notably its electric car and green energy subsidies.
In an op-ed for the Atlanta Journal Consitution, Merritt wrote that "rates for Medicare Prescription Drug Plans have risen four times more than the national rate of inflation since the IRA was enacted. In some battlegrounds, it's risen eight or nine times higher."...
(Excerpt) Read more at thecentersquare.com ...
