A law meant to help Idaho seniors afford drugs is hurting them. It needs to be fixed | Opinion
More than 300,000 Idahoans rely on Medicare Part D to pay for their prescription drugs. So when former President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in 2022, with its provisions to lower prescription drug prices and reform the Medicare drug benefit, Idaho seniors probably thought they were getting a great deal.
Instead, the IRA has done nothing but harm. Healthcare costs have soared, while seniors face an increasingly difficult time accessing their lifesaving drugs. Perhaps worst of all, the law has undermined incentives for medical innovation — stifling the development of breakthrough treatments.
Fortunately, a new bill is giving Congress — and Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo — a chance to help fix this.
The problems with the IRA are numerous. While the Biden administration claimed it would lower Medicare recipients’ healthcare costs, the opposite has happened.
Between 2023 and 2024, Medicare Part D premiums rose by over 20% on average. This year, the average increase would’ve been dramatically more than that, if not for a last-minute bailout orchestrated by the outgoing administration.
The IRA is also projected to send seniors’ drug costs skyrocketing. According to one recent report, 3.5 million Medicare recipients will likely see their out-of-pocket spending increase next year due to the law.
The vast majority of insurers that oversee Medicare Part D plans are planning to put up extra red tape to prevent patients from accessing certain medications. These changes are sure to have devastating effects across the Gem State. A recent statewide survey found that over half of Idahoan respondents already worry about being able to afford their drug prescriptions.
Yet perhaps the most harmful consequence of the IRA — which will affect not only Idaho’s seniors, but all our state’s residents — is its effect on drug innovation.
Under the IRA, the government claims the right to impose price controls on dozens of common medicines. That makes the multibillion-dollar drug development process, which already has a 90% failure rate, an even riskier financial proposition for companies.
But these price controls aren’t applied to all drugs evenly. The IRA allows pills to be subjected to price controls after just nine years on the market, while drugs that take other forms — like injections or infusions — get immunity from price controls for 13 years.
That makes it far easier for drugmakers to recoup their R&D costs on drugs that aren’t pills. As a result, many companies are shifting their efforts away from pills, even though that’s often the cheapest and most effective way to treat chronic conditions, from cardiovascular disease to cancer.
In total, researchers estimate that the IRA’s so-called “pill penalty” could lead to nearly 80 fewer treatments being created over the next two decades.
The impact of the pill penalty will be deeply felt in a state like Idaho. Roughly a third of our state’s residents, including a disproportionate share of older adults, live in rural communities.
If the more convenient pills stop being developed, many of these Idahoans with chronic conditions will be forced to make long commutes to hospitals or clinics to receive the treatments they need.
It’s time for Idaho’s lawmakers to take a stand for change. They have an opportunity to do so in the proposed Ensuring Pathways to Innovative Cures (EPIC) Act, which would eliminate the pill penalty and apply the 13-year price control exemption to all drugs.
In doing so, the bill would restore crucial incentives for innovation — ensuring that critical new treatments to improve and extend Idahoans’ lives continue to be developed.
The Inflation Reduction Act is failing Idahoans, but Crapo can limit the damage by ensuring that the EPIC Act is included in Congress’s budget reconciliation package. Idaho’s seniors — and future patients in need of new treatments — are counting on it.