CNN
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Starting next month, some Medicare beneficiaries will pay less out of pocket for 27 prescription drugs whose prices rose faster than inflation late last year, the Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday.
The announcement came as President Joe Biden once again highlighted his efforts to lower Americans’ everyday costs amid higher-than-desired inflation.
In remarks delivered in Las Vegas, Biden touted the steps his administration has taken to reduce health care costs for seniors, while calling for several of the measures to be extended to all Americans and criticizing Republicans for attempting to stymy his legislative agenda.
“Let’s finish the job. Let’s protect the lower prescription drug costs for everyone. Let’s expand health care for more people to get care,” Biden said, noting that GOP lawmakers did not support Democrats’ measures to lower drug costs for seniors. “Let’s keep building the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not from the top down.”
Seniors could see their cost sharing drop by between $2 and $390 per average dose for the medications, which are used by patients with several types of cancer, fungal infections, acne, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic kidney disease and urinary tract infections, among other conditions. The drugs, which are covered by Medicare Part B, are administered by doctors.
The list of drugs eligible for rebates would be updated quarterly, said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.
Just how much Medicare beneficiaries will save depends on a variety of factors, including whether they have supplemental coverage and what their treatment protocol is. Seniors typically pay 20% of the Medicare-approved cost of the drug as co-insurance.
The cost savings stem from a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, which congressional Democrats passed last August. It requires drug companies pay a rebate to Medicare if they raise their prices faster than inflation.
The measure also serves as a “strong incentive” to dissuade drug makers from hiking prices, said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In 2021, the prices of some 1,200 prescription drugs increased faster than inflation, according to a recent HHS report.
“It’s sort of, I would say, a…
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