Published October 28, 2023
If history’s any indicator, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) could haunt Democrats in 2024 like the Affordable Care Act did in the 2010 and 2014 elections.
The most devastating line of those campaigns was: “My opponent voted for Obamacare, which cut $716 billion from Medicare.”
A new economic analysis reveals that the IRA has the same problem.
It too was funded at Medicare’s expense.
Until now this has been obscured by budget gimmicky. Former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakins’ organization, the American Action Forum, uncovers what happened.
In short, the IRA’s Medicare prescription drug reforms save the federal government $266 billion, but the savings are used to fund new climate spending, not reduce seniors’ pharmacy costs.
The analysis concludes that, “the Medicare savings are simply another means of financing the IRA’s $670 billion in clean energy tax credits and other spending on energy and the environment.”
While the law features some inexpensive new benefits, like a $2,000 cap on pharmacy out-of-pocket costs, these consume just a fraction of the savings from the prescription drug policies.
If all the savings had been used to improve Medicare, it would mean $40,000 more for each of the program’s 65 million enrollees. Instead, fewer than 10% of them will see any savings, usually less than $300. Just enough so the law’s backers can say it “reduces drug costs for seniors.”
The big winners from IRA policies like letting Medicare “negotiate” drug prices will be millions of younger, white-collar professionals who’ll get $7,500 credits for electric vehicles (EVs). For each senior who saves a few dollars at the pharmacy counter, six EV buyers will save thousands at the dealership.
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SOURCE: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/inflation-reduction-act-bidenomics-loser-2024
RELATED: Prices Rise More Than Expected as Inflation’s Grip on Economy Persists
Published October 27, 2023
The cost of goods and services rose 0.4 percent for a second consecutive month in September, challenging the view that the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes are still bringing down inflation.
The personal consumption expenditure price index was expected to cool slightly from the prior month.
Over the past year, the index is up 3.4 percent. That is unchanged from the August reading, data from the Commerce Department showed Friday. The Federal Reserve says it wants to bring PCE inflation down to two percent, a rate not seen since President Joe Biden took office in early 2021.
The persistence of inflation at the current level casts doubt on the Fed’s claims that the series of rate hikes from March 2022 through July of 2023 are still pulling down inflation. On Thursday, the Commerce Department said the economy grew at an annual pace of 4.9 percent, much faster than expected. That rate of growth is likely inconsistent with falling inflation or the claim that the stance of monetary policy is significantly restrictive.
The PCE price gauge hit a high of 0.9 percent on a month-to-month basis in June of 2022, the fastest clip of price gains since 2005. On a year-over-year basis, the PCE price index increased 7.1 percent in June 20222, the worst inflation since 1981.
The monthly pace of price gains fell from 0.6 percent in January of this year to 3.1 percent in February, a welcome respite from the prior year’s wave of high inflation that was taken as a sign that the Fed’s monetary tightening was wringing price pressures out of the economy. For the following five months, monthly inflation bounced around in a range of three to one percent. In August, however, price gains jumped back up to 0.4 percent,
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SOURCE: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2023/10/27/prices-rise-more-than-expected-as-inflations-grip-on-economy-persists/
RELATED: Bidenflation: Hazardous to Your Health Care, Too
Published October 27, 2023
Bidenomics is driving up the cost of health care.
In the release of its annual survey of employer health benefits, the Kaiser Family Foundation notes: “Amid rising inflation, annual family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance climbed 7% on average this year to reach $23,968, a sharp departure from virtually no growth in premiums last year, the 2023 benchmark KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey finds.”
When looked at in isolation, we will likely hear calls for more government intervention to “fix” the employer market. But employer-based coverage is only part of the larger health care coverage ecosystem. When looked at more broadly, those areas where the government is in charge, the landscape does not look much better.
Take Medicare. Medicare premiums are on the rise. In October, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Medicare premiums will increase by almost $10 per month for 2024.
The Medicare Part B monthly premiums for seniors will increase from $164.90 to $174.70. The increase is reported to be mainly due to increased health care spending.
This is not the first time seniors will face a jump in premiums. In 2022, the first full year of the Biden administration, Medicare saw the largest increase in program history. Premiums jumped 14.5%, a historic increase that Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services attributed to rising health care prices and utilization.
In Medicaid, the joint federal-state health care program for the poor, spending is also on the rise, especially for the states. Total spending (both federal and state spending), which by design is intended to limit enrollee premium exposure, peaked at 12.5% in 2022.
Now with the end of the COVID-19 emergency that provided a temporary increase in federal support, the share of costs will return to normal levels. While total Medicaid spending is expected to slow, the state share is expected to increase as those emergency federal subsidies that shielded costs from the states goes away.
States are projected to see a 16.3% increase in their share of costs.
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SOURCE: https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/10/27/bidenflation-hazardous-to-your-health-care-too/
