(DailyVantage.com) – Critics have accused the Biden administration of attempting to hide the increase in Medicare premiums by using taxpayer funding to subsidize the program.
The so-called Inflation Reduction Act included a provision to cap prescription costs for Medicare recipients. However, insurers are planning to increase monthly premiums. To avoid voter backlash, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services launched a three-year project to keep the premiums artificially low through taxpayer subsidies.
According to some critics, the taxpayer subsidy for each recipient will skyrocket from $30 a month in 2024 to more than $142 a month next year, which has led to concerns about the long-term costs of the program.
Healthcare research group Paragon Health Institute described the subsidy plan in a recent analysis as “fake” and a “costly demonstration.”
Paragon’s Jackson Hammond said the CMS launched the program “fearing the premium increases” the Inflation Reduction Act would impose on Medicare Part D plans. He said that contrary to the CMS’s claim that the plan was voluntary, insurers that do not participate would “face significant losses.”
According to research from the investment research group Fidelity, those retiring at 65 could expect to spend $165,000 in 2024 on health care, a 5 percent increase from 2023 and more than double what a retiree spent in 2002.
Former Trump advisor Joe Grogan told Fox News that the CMS’s plan is not providing real relief to Medicare enrollees. Instead, it merely shifts the increased costs to taxpayers.
Grogan said the Biden administration has “destroyed” Medicare Part D and suggested that the CMS’s new plan was unlikely to survive a legal challenge.
He said the plan would inject between $5 billion and $10 billion in taxpayer dollars less than three months before a presidential election.
Grogan described the plan as a “death spiral” that would only get worse in the coming years as premiums continue to increase.
More than 67 million Americans are currently enrolled in Medicare. Of those, roughly 80 percent are covered by Medicare Part D.
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