• Joe Biden Broke Medicare with Price Controls, President Trump Can Fix I

    From John Smyth@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jan 27 17:02:35 2025
    XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.republicans, talk.politics.guns

    'Joe Biden Broke Medicare with Price Controls, President Trump Can Fix
    It'

    <https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/01/27/joe-biden-broke-medicare-with-price-controls-president-trump-can-fix-it/>

    'President Donald Trump is right: Joe Biden broke Medicare. Under
    Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), seniors and patients pay higher insurance premiums and more out-of-pocket costs for less healthcare
    coverage. Trump must stop Biden’s midnight Medicare rule before February
    1, or it will trigger mandates that could destroy Medicare’s popular
    Part D program.

    Biden was a disaster from his first day in office to the final days of
    his administration. In a cynical, last-minute move before leaving
    office, his administration snuck IRA price controls on 15 prescription
    drugs. This wasn’t about helping seniors. It was about sticking the
    Trump administration with burdensome regulations before he was sworn in
    as president. Biden bureaucrats rushed this broken rule, setting up
    Medicare for failure during Trump’s term. Trump has to freeze
    implementation by February 1 to stop the damage, or the rule will
    trigger mandates that make it hard to roll back.

    Make no mistake: Biden’s IRA price controls will hurt seniors and many Americans who need these treatments. Like Kamala’s price control
    proposal during her failed campaign, these price controls are set by bureaucratic mandate and enforced with a 95 percent tax on any company
    that doesn’t comply. Even the Washington Post recognized how terrible
    these price controls are: “It’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy
    is. It is, in all but name, a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food. Supply and demand would
    no longer determine prices or profit levels. Far-off Washington
    bureaucrats would. … At best, this would lead to shortages, black
    markets and hoarding, among other distortions seen previous times
    countries tried to limit price growth by fiat.”

    To make things worse, our government’s giant health bureaucracy hasn’t
    set up a proper system to manage drug prices or ensure pharmacies are reimbursed correctly. Local pharmacies are already saying they won’t be
    able to provide medications when the program begins in 2026. According
    to a survey, over 90 percent of independent pharmacists said they won’t
    have the resources to handle the changes.

    Biden’s IRA already caused Medicare Part D premiums to skyrocket. The
    IRA lowered the out-of-pocket maximum for seniors from about $3,300 to
    $2,000 by shifting the responsibility for the $1,300 difference to
    insurance companies. That sounds great, but insurance companies pass
    that cost on to consumers through higher premiums and restricted access
    to prescription drugs. This year, premiums for Medicare Part D are up
    more than 20 percent for the more than 50 million Americans enrolled.
    Seniors are paying more, and taxpayers are also on the hook for higher subsidies to these plans. The Congressional Budget Office says the IRA’s
    drug rules alone will increase Medicare costs by up to $20 billion in
    2025.

    Thankfully, Trump is just getting started. He has already reversed many
    of Biden’s disastrous mandates and rules. In his first days back, Trump canceled 78 of Biden’s “unpopular, inflationary, illegal, and radical” executive orders. He froze spending on IRA programs to protect Americans
    from these deep state regulations from implementation.

    Joe Biden broke Medicare, but Donald Trump can fix it. With Trump’s leadership, premiums can go down, seniors will have more plan options,
    and Medicare will work better for everyone. Trump can start by freezing Biden’s IRA drug rule before the end of this week.'

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)