The Inflation Reduction Act Is Hitting Medicare, Seniors, and Medical Research

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Ron Fitzwater, CEO of the Missouri Pharmacy Association, wrote in the Missouri Times, “Nearly two years after its passage, the IRA has diverted nearly $260 billion from the projected Medicare savings to pay for special interest handouts like large tax credits for costly electric vehicles, enormous subsidies paid to big health insurer-PBM corporations, and funding health care programs for illegal immigrants.” 

This shift began when the act transferred the burden of paying for prescription medicines from seniors to insurance companies. Predictably, insurance companies responded by increasing premiums for 2025.

“Increases were coming in at about 179 percent,” Fitzwater noted. To avoid a political fallout with voters just before the election, the Biden administration implemented a federal bailout, shifting the financial hit to taxpayers.

According to an August 12th article in Politico, the chain reaction began when the act shifted the burden of paying for prescription medicine from seniors to insurance companies.