This year was expected to be a very bad year for Medicare patients, with premiums expected to go through the roof.
It turns out that Biden and Harris have earmarked tax dollars to offset some of the rising premiums, conveniently in the midst of an election year.
Talking Points…
- The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)
- Rising Medicare premiums
- Analysis
Back in August 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act was passed through 51-50, with Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaking vote. As a side note, this was the same legislation that earmarked money for the IRS to better track tips for service workers to ensure they are being fully taxed. The legislation also earmarked money for Medicare. Money in the legislation was earmarked to offset rising Medicare premiums, and oddly enough, funding would expire just after the election.
In order to ensure that premiums did not start to go up as expected this year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced in July that taxpayer funds would be used to offset these premiums, clearly a move made so Democrats would not be impacted in the election. And if Dems lose the election, when premiums go up, they can now blame the Republicans, who would be in power.
This is a time bomb about to go off, possibly raising premiums from $30 per month to more than $142 per month. Keep in mind that most of these people are on fixed incomes, and you are about to take a huge chunk of what little money they have left in their monthly budgets to pay for their Medicare.
Former President Trump advisor Joe Grogan obliterated the move by Dems to offer this false cover of the rising premiums. He stated:
“They’ve destroyed part D premiums. I’m not sure it’ll survive legal scrutiny if someone were to sue. Objectively, it shouldn’t be done. It’s just interjecting $5-10 billion of taxpayer dollars while the taxpayers are paying the price 85 days before an election. It’s sickening.
“This is only going to get worse in 2025, 2026. The program is in a death spiral. They announced a three-year demo. It’s already broken. The demo is going to fail. Premiums are still going to go up.”
Grogan added:
“They just want to get through the election.
“They’re hoping after the election they can face it, but it’s gonna need to be dealt with in the next 12–18 months. They did not believe it would be this bad, and it’s only gonna get worse.”
Paragon Health Institute, a health care research group, added:
"Fearing the premium increases that the IRA redesign will impose on Part D plans, CMS has now launched a new voluntary, nationwide demonstration program that is neither a demonstration nor voluntary. Unlike this massive subsidization scheme, demonstrations are supposed to be limited in nature and test alternative features of program design.
"As a result of the IRA changes, insurers that don’t participate are expected to either be uncompetitive from a price perspective or face significant losses — hardly a choice for insurers."
I can tell you for a fact this is something that is being shielded from the media by Democrats but has insurance agents terrified for how their clients will be able to handle this massive rise in premiums. I have numerous friends in this industry, all of whom have clients literally breaking down in tears over the expected premium rise, trying to figure out how they are going to pay for it when their budget is already stretched. Like I said… this is a time bomb that was created by Democrats that is just waiting to explode; only Democrats made sure the detonation would not happen until after the election in the hopes of holding on to their power.
