CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday highlighted cuts to prescription drugs for seniors as he looked to cement his legacy with the race to replace him just two weeks away. Biden also addressed Republican nominee for President Donald Trump and his policy proposals: “He has no idea about anything. No plans.”
The event in New Hampshire’s capital was attended by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the last candidate to defeat Biden to win the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. They appeared together at Concord Community College to announce a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services, which found that nearly 1.5 million Medicare participants spent nearly $1 billion on prescription drugs in the first half of the year had saved on prescription.
Much of those savings came from a cap on out-of-pocket drug costs created by the sweeping climate and health care law that the Biden administration helped push through Congress in 2022. It placed an annual cap of $3,500 that recipients of Medicare, the government health insurance plans for seniors, will pay for their prescriptions, while making recommended vaccines for older Americans, such as immunization against shingles, free.
Biden said seniors won’t be the only ones benefiting from the cuts.
“It also saves taxpayers billions of dollars,” he said.
Next year, the drug cost ceiling for Medicare recipients will drop to $2,000 per year, which will save some of the sickest Americans even more. But the change has come at a price for others: It has contributed to rising premiums for drug plans that the government has tried to keep low by paying insurers billions of dollars from the Medicare trust fund. Still, some insurers have significantly increased subscription prices – or taken them off the market.
Asked aboard Air Force One en route to New Hampshire about tapping the Medicare trust fund to cover the additional costs, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she had no details. But she added: “Because of the work this administration has done,” seniors “saw the results of that.”
However, the legislation is expected to deliver big savings for taxpayers and Medicare enrollees in other ways in the long run.
For the first time ever, the federal government will negotiate the price of ten of Medicare’s most expensive drugs. The negotiated list prices, announced in August, will come into effect in 2026. Taxpayers spend more than $50 billion annually on the 10 drugs, which include the popular blood thinners Xarelto and Eliquis and diabetes drugs Jardiance and Januvia.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that Medicare drug pricing negotiations will save taxpayers $3.7 billion in the first year.
Biden and Sanders would also visit a local campaign office to promote Democratic candidates in the state, where the governorship will be elected in November. They targeted state candidates, rather than Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who will face former Republican President Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 election.
Sanders ran for president in 2016 and 2020. Biden was his party’s presumptive nominee for re-election until he put in a dismal performance in a June debate against Trump and ended his bid under pressure from fellow Democrats.
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Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz in Washington contributed to this report.
