Harmony, New Hampshire – President Biden will tout his administration’s progress in bringing down medicine prices throughout a go to to New Hampshire Tuesday alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders, because the president seeks to cement his coverage legacy.
Mr. Biden is scheduled to talk at Harmony Neighborhood Faculty, the place he’ll spotlight a brand new report by the Division of Well being and Human Companies that discovered practically 1.5 million Medicare enrollees saved practically $1 billion on prescribed drugs within the first half of 2024.
The financial savings are a results of the cap on out-of-pocket drug prices put in place by the Inflation Discount Act, a signature piece of laws the president signed into legislation in 2022. The legislation capped out-of-pocket drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries at $3,500 per yr, and subsequent yr the cap will go all the way down to $2,000 per yr.
“Congress has talked lots about this, however simply by no means received a lot achieved. And partly it needed to do with the truth that Pharma is such an enormous lobbyist,” Leighton Ku, a professor within the division of well being coverage and administration at George Washington College, stated in an interview with CBS Information. “So the truth that the Biden administration may work with Congress to get even these marginal issues achieved is spectacular.”
The Biden administration had beforehand negotiated costs for 10 extensively used prescribed drugs after a back-and-forth between Medicare and drug producers, and capped insulin at $35 per thirty days for a lot of sufferers.
On Monday, the White Home additionally proposed a plan that, if implement, would require non-public insurers to cowl over-the-counter contraception strategies without charge to sufferers.
In an announcement launched forward of Tuesday’s occasion, Sanders praised the administration’s efforts to decrease drug costs. “For the primary time in historical past, Medicare is negotiating to decrease the costs of a few of the costliest prescribed drugs in America,” the Vermont senator stated. “However, let’s be clear. Rather more must be achieved. In my opinion, no person in America ought to be paying extra for prescribed drugs than they do in Europe or Canada.”
Mr. Biden can be anticipated to make a cease at a marketing campaign workplace whereas within the Granite State.