Two years after President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law, the grim reality of its impact on Medicare and America’s patients has become alarmingly clear. Contrary to the promises from the Biden-Harris administration and its allies in Congress, the IRA has not reduced healthcare costs. Instead, it is inflicting substantial harm and worsening the situation for millions of patients and seniors nationwide.
Democrats pitched the disastrous spending bill to the American public as a measure to “reduce inflation and lower healthcare costs.” However, the reality has been starkly different. The IRA has diverted an estimated $260 billion from Medicare savings to fund liberal pet projects, like pushing electric vehicles and big insurer tax subsidies. Meanwhile, Medicare premiums have gone through the roof, and seniors can access fewer Part D plans and lifesaving treatments.
The Biden-Harris administration is attempting to hide the actual cost of the IRA’s failures by raiding Medicare’s vulnerable savings. The administration acknowledged that Medicare Part D standalone plan premiums increased 21 percent from 2023 to 2024. To make matters worse, the average plan bid amount is up 179 percent for 2025, from $64.28 in 2024 to $179.45. This alarming increase is set to drive up premiums for beneficiaries even further.
In an election year, the administration is using a massive new subsidy program to cover up the IRA’s failures and mislead patients. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) unveiled a multi-billion-dollar subsidy “demonstration project” to ensure insurers comply with the IRA’s premium cap of 6 percent. CMS’ “demo project” would impose “a year-over-year increase limit of $35” for premiums while boosting payments to insurers. This program will steal nearly $72 billion from Medicare over the next three years.
Instead of acknowledging the IRA’s failures, the White House continues to manipulate Medicare’s finances to hide the actual costs. This strategy is a short-term fix that will damage patients and seniors in the long term. Put simply, the administration is desperate to avoid facing the political consequences of its dangerous agenda.
The IRA’s harmful drug price controls and the administration’s deceptive tactics directly threaten Medicare’s sustainability and the well-being of older Americans. The law already forces companies to cancel crucial investments, leaving patients and seniors without access to the necessary treatments and medications.
Patients with rare diseases or complex medical conditions are particularly vulnerable. These patients often depend on specialized medications and cutting-edge therapies that require significant investment in research and development (R&D). Today, 65 new drug projects have already been canceled. By stifling this innovation, the IRA is effectively condemning these patients to a future with fewer treatment options and diminished hope. The law’s impact on drug availability is not an abstract issue; it is a tangible crisis affecting real people every day.
At the IRA’s signing Biden crowed that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had scored the bill as reducing deficits by $238 billion over 10 years. Yet less than one year later the Joint Committee on Taxation revised its costs upwards by $400 billion. But even these cost increases are misleading as the Treasury Department itself admits independent analysis from the Brookings Institution and Goldman Sachs forecast the IRA will cost taxpayers somewhere between $780 billion and $1.2 trillion.
This is, after all, the federal government, so hardly anyone can be shocked that less than a year in the IRA’s estimated costs have gone from over $200 billion in “savings” to about $1 trillion in more debt. Whoever still believes this massive zeppelin of waste and fraud will do anything to help lower prices for consumers, we kindly ask you to please turn off the lights on your way out.
In earnest we hope lawmakers take note, and stand against these dangerous policies and protect Medicare’s future. The IRA not only fails to deliver on its promises but actively harms the very people it was purportedly designed to help. As the Biden-Harris administration pushes forward with its radical healthcare plan, the threats to patients and older Americans could not be more serious.
