Go to Kamala Harris’ campaign website and among the very short list of alleged achievements is this: “She cast the deciding vote to lower drug prices and cap insulin prices for our seniors.”
The only problem is that drug costs for seniors have skyrocketed since Harris signed that bill.
Harris is pointing to the criminally misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act,” which got zero Republican votes, and which was supposed to lower the cost of prescription drugs by giving, as Harris puts it, “Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices with Big Pharma.”
When George W. Bush established Medicare Part D, he let private insurers negotiate with drug companies over prices and then compete for seniors’ business. The result was a program that cost both seniors and taxpayers far less than government bureaucrats had expected, offered seniors a wide range of options, and had premiums that barely budged for more than a decade.
In fact, average monthly premiums for a Part D plan were lower when Donald Trump left office than under Barack Obama. […]
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