Biden-Harris Regime Using Taxpayer Money to Mask Medicare Premium Hikes Doubling Even Tripling Before Election

Kamala Harris Harris was the deciding vote on the “Inflation Reducxtion Act” that will triple Medicare part D premiums AFTER THE ELECTION.

Research published by Fidelity, an investment research group, shows that a 65-year-old retiring today can expect to spend $165,000 on health care in retirement, a 5% increase from last year and more than double the estimate from 2002.

This should be a Trump campaign ad. Leaflet every nursing home, assisted living, church, and other senior venues. Run ads on shows, streaming services targeting seniors.

The Biden-Harris administration is using ​​billions of taxpayer dollars to bail out health insurers in order to mask impending rises in Medicare Part D plans less than 100 days out from Election Day — and being criticized for it.

The Democrat-supported 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) limited out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare recipients, which in turn put insurers in the position of dramatically hiking  monthly premiums, Breitbart News reported.

So Biden and Kamala raided Medicare (in the Inflation Reduction Act) to fund EV tax credits.

That caused premiums for seniors’ prescription costs to spike

NOW the Biden/Harris admin is covertly trying to pay off insurers to NOT increase premiums until after the election. pic.twitter.com/n5TjiAupWM

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) August 7, 2024

The Wall Street Journal:

The IRA redesigned Medicare Part D by capping patient out-of-pocket spending and shifting more of the entitlement’s costs to insurers. Democrats wanted to squeeze insurers, while reducing the government’s projected cost for their entitlement expansion.

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Anticipating that insurers might raise premiums, Democrats capped annual increases in base premiums at 6%. But base premiums are for bare-bones plans. Most seniors enroll in plans with more generous benefits, such as lower co-pays and deductibles and broader drug formularies.

Insurers report that many Part D plan premiums will rise far more than 6% next year, when the IRA’s $2,000 limit on out-of-pocket spending takes effect. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has also tweaked regulations to make benefits more generous. Some insurers warn they may exit the market to avoid losing money.

They also say higher premiums on stand-alone Part D plans for seniors in Medicare fee-for-service will cause more to sign up for Medicare Advantage, which has lower drug premiums because insurers can use other revenue to offset them. This is ironic since the Administration is trying to reduce enrollment in Medicare Advantage.

The political problem is that seniors would be notified of these premium spikes shortly before the election. Thus the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid did damage control last week. CMS usually announces preliminary Part D premiums in July. Not this year. Instead, CMS unveiled a “demonstration project” that would impose “a year-over-year increase limit of $35” for premiums while boosting payments to insurers.

[….]

he gambit backfired as insurers are raising premiums. CMS’s intervention is another example of how the IRA will cost far more than Democrats claimed. Nobody knows how much more since CMS isn’t doing a normal rule-making that requires a cost analysis (continue reading……)

Biden-Harris administration using taxpayer money to mask Medicare premium hikes before election: critics

‘The program is in a death spiral,’ former domestic policy adviser to former President Trump says

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By Jamie Joseph, Fox Business, August 14, 2024 8:15am EDT

Social Security and Medicare are headed toward ‘insolvency’: Maya MacGuineas

In a move critics say is designed to shield the Biden-Harris administration from election fallout, the administration has leveraged taxpayer funds to mask upcoming increases in Medicare premiums.

Under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was intended to cap out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries, insurers are poised to significantly hike monthly premiums, with average bids for Part D plans expected to triple by 2025.

In response to potential voter backlash, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rolled out a three-year “demonstration project” to subsidize these premiums, aiming to keep them artificially low. However, despite the appearance of relief, some critics are saying that taxpayers will fund a dramatic increase in subsidies — from $30 per recipient per month in 2024 to $142.70 in 2025 — raising concerns about the long-term impact on government spending and debt.

Former President Trump adviser Joe Grogan has criticized the maneuver, arguing that it merely shifts costs rather than providing real relief.

“They’ve destroyed Part D premiums,” Grogan told Fox News Digital in an interview. “I’m not sure it’ll survive legal scrutiny if someone were to sue. Objectively, it shouldn’t be done. It’s just interjecting $5-$10 billion of taxpayer dollars, while the taxpayers are paying the price 85 days before an election. It’s sickening.”

“This is only going to get worse in 2025, 2026,” Grogan continued. “The program is in a death spiral. They announced a three-year demo. It’s already broken. The demo is going to fail. Premiums are still going to go up.”

Paragon Health Institute, a health care research group, called the CMS demo plan a “fake, costly demonstration,” in a recent analysis.

Continue reading….