Biden, Sanders highlight falling prescription drug costs during NH shutdown

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — President Joe Biden highlighted savings on prescription drugs for seniors Tuesday as he sought to cement his legacy with the race to replace him in just two weeks. Biden also criticized former Republican President Donald Trump and his policy proposals: “He has no idea about anything. No plans.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the last candidate Biden defeated to win the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, joined the event in New Hampshire’s capital. They appeared together at Concord Community College to announce a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services that found nearly 1.5 million Medicare enrollees saved nearly $1 billion on prescription drugs over the course of the first semester.

Much of those savings are the result of a cap on direct drug costs created by the sweeping climate and health care law that the Biden administration helped push through Congress in 2022. It set an annual maximum of $3,500 to Medicare beneficiaries. , government health insurance plans for seniors, pay for their prescriptions while making recommended vaccines for older Americans, like the shingles vaccination, free.

Biden said seniors aren’t the only ones who benefit from the savings.

“It also saves taxpayers billions of dollars,” he said.

Next year, the drug cost cap for Medicare beneficiaries will drop to $2,000 a year, allowing some of the sickest Americans to save more. But this change came at a price for others: it contributed to the rise in drug plan premiums that the government tried to contain by paying insurers billions of dollars from the Medicare trust fund. Yet some insurers have significantly increased the prices of their plans – or pulled their plans from the marketplace.

Asked aboard Air Force One en route to New Hampshire about the possibility of tapping into the Medicare trust fund to cover additional costs, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she would not ‘had no details. But she added: “Thanks to the work this administration has done, seniors are “seeing the results.”

However, the legislation should, in the long term, result in significant savings in other ways for taxpayers and Medicare policyholders.

For the first time ever, the federal government will negotiate the prices of 10 of Medicare’s most expensive drugs. The negotiated list prices, announced in August, will take effect in 2026. Taxpayers spend more than $50 billion a year on the 10 drugs, which include the popular blood thinners Xarelto and Eliquis and the diabetes drugs Jardiance and Januvia.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that Medicare drug price negotiations will save taxpayers $3.7 billion in the first year.

Biden and Sanders were also scheduled to visit a local campaign office to promote Democratic candidates in the state, where the governorship is up for election in November. They focused on state candidates, rather than Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who faces Republican former President Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 election.

Sanders ran for president in 2016 and 2020. Biden was his party’s presumptive nominee for reelection until he had a dismal performance in a June debate against Trump and ended his candidacy under pressure from his Democratic colleagues.

Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz in Washington contributed to this report.