Will Biden's Medicare cost increases be the final nail sinking whatever chances the Democrats had in the midterms?
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
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Now, for today’s topic. Medicare and the sinking Democratic chances of holding on to Congress in the midterms.
Unlike some members of my family and friends, I have been fairly optimistic about November. Between Trump-backed wackos going after establishment Republicans in their primaries and some redistricting advantages for the Democrats, I have been arguing that the Democrats could hold on.
I can’t argue that anymore.
If the Democrats really want to lose control of Congress Biden can’t do it any better than pissing off Democratic seniors who along with African American voters are a solid base of the Party.
And it is cruel.
I’ve been writing for a while about Biden adopting the Trump plan of turning all of Medicare into a private insurance-based system like Medicare Advantage.
Biden announced last week that it will leave in place one of the largest-ever Medicare premium hikes for the remainder of 2022, despite federal health officials' decision to restrict coverage of the expensive and potentially ineffective Alzheimer's drug that drove the increase in the first place.
Last November the feds announced that the cost of Medicare Part B would go up 14.5% in 2022 because of what they expected to be the massive cost of Biogen’s Alzheimer drug, Aduhelm.
As law professors Nicholas Bagley and Rachel Sachs wrote for The Atlantic last week, the FDA's decision to approve (Aduhelm "could trigger hundreds of billions of dollars of new government spending, all without a vote in Congress or indeed any public debate over the drug's value."
Under current law, Medicare is prohibited from negotiating drug prices with manufacturers, meaning the federal government will pay Biogen's $56,000 annual per-patient price for the drug. Amid howls of outrage over the medication's price tag, Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos insisted Monday that the cost is "fair" and promised not to raise it for four years.
Bagley and Sachs noted that "if even one-third of the estimated 6 million people with Alzheimer's in the United States receives the new treatment, [federal] healthcare spending could swell by $112 billion annually."
"To put that figure in perspective, in 2020, Medicare spent about $90 billion on prescription drugs for 46 million Americans through the Part D program, which covers prescription medication that you pick up at your local pharmacy," the pair wrote. "We could wind up spending more than that for Aduhelm alone." (Common Dreams)
And there are real questions about Aduhelm’s effectiveness as an Alzheimer drug.
So with billions going to Biogen and Medicare premiums going up double digits, seniors on Medicare let our electeds know that we were pissed.
Last month, the feds walked it back and decided to restrict coverage of Aduhelm to Medicare patients enrolled in clinical trials, undercutting any justification for the 2022 premium spike.
Then came Biden’s decision last Friday to keep the 2022 premium increases in place.
Warren Gunnels, the staff director for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., …argued that the Biden administration's refusal to reverse the premium hike is both political and policy malpractice.
"Imagine being able to put more money in the pockets of senior citizens who are struggling to put food on the table right now and doing nothing instead," Gunnels wrote on Twitter. "This is how you blow a slam dunk."
So, not only is this a cruel decision, it makes me convinced the Democrats actually want to lose in November.
Some of my friends have tried to argue that the problem with the Democrats is they have poor messaging.
But to me the problem isn’t the message.
It’s the policies.