In their recent op-ed, “How Congress can deliver healthcare affordability and mitigate Inflation Reduction Act disaster,” Public Policy Solutions’ President Joe Grogan and Co-Founder John Czwartacki argue that despite broader economic improvements, healthcare costs remain high, largely due to provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that they say have increased premiums, reduced plan options, and disrupted Medicare drug programs. They contend that government-imposed drug price controls are already discouraging pharmaceutical innovation, citing canceled research programs and long-term risks to new treatments.
In their op-ed, Joe and John write,
“Trump has taken some efforts to empower patients on prescription drug pricing, such as the launch of TrumpRx. However, Trump’s inheritance, the IRA, has proven more difficult to address. Recent surveys show that Americans have a strong appetite for reforms that will fix some of the law’s worst provisions, improve access, and lower costs.
Despite Democrats’ promises that the IRA would lower drug costs and improve American healthcare, it has done the exact opposite. By imposing price controls on Medicare Part D, the IRA effectively “broke” the program, reducing options and increasing premiums for beneficiaries who rely on prescription drug plans for their medication.
This doesn’t even factor in the longer-term catastrophic impact of the IRA’s price “negotiations”: The predictable destruction of discoveries will have as innovators are forced to pull back on research and development needed to bring a new product to market. Since the passage of the IRA, 56 research programs and 26 drugs have been discontinued — and counting.”
Read the full op-ed at the Washington Examiner.