Idaho seniors will pay more for prescription coverage, thanks to Biden | Opinion

Government meddling in the healthcare sector almost always backfires — and unfortunately, Idaho seniors are about to face the fallout from federal incompetence. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services just announced that many Medicare prescription drug premiums are skyrocketing next year.

This gargantuan price hike isn’t the fault of current officials, though. In fact, it was set in motion all the way back in 2022, when then-President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law.

Several provisions in that sweeping legislation all but guaranteed that seniors would pay more for drug insurance, while having fewer options. Unfortunately, for the nearly 300,000 Idahoans who rely on Part D coverage, that day has nearly arrived.

Congress created Medicare Part D in 2003 to allow seniors to purchase government-subsidized prescription drug coverage from private insurance providers. It was an expansion of the government’s role in our healthcare sector — but unlike most government expansions of entitlement programs, Part D at least tried to channel the power of market competition to help consumers. It forced insurers to compete against each other, on both the price and quality of their plans, in order to win seniors’ business.

The model has proven enormously popular — with nearly 90% of Part D enrollees expressing satisfaction with their plans.

Not content to leave well enough alone, however, Biden and his allies in Congress made substantial changes to the program under the IRA. And now Idaho seniors are about to pay the price for this needless meddling.

The irony is that most of Biden’s Part D reforms were billed as a means of lowering drug costs for seniors. But because of how these reforms have been implemented, they also shifted more costs onto Part D plan providers — which has led insurers to raise premiums to make up for these new financial liabilities.

Idaho Medicare enrollees have already gotten a taste of these price increases. This year’s Part D premiums were 11% higher than in 2023. And for many Idaho seniors, they’ll rise again starting in January. For the nearly 68,000 Idaho seniors enrolled in the Wellcare Value Script plan — the most popular option statewide — premiums will rise by nearly $10 compared to the 2025 premium. For the almost 18,000 seniors in the AARP Medicare Rx Preferred from UHC plan, premiums are soaring to $132.60 a month, up from $86.80 this year.

Higher premiums are just one of the ways insurers are defraying the costs of Biden’s reforms. They’ve also trimmed back their offerings. In fact, the number of Part D plans available to Idaho seniors fell from 23 in 2023 to just 14 this year — a nearly 40% drop. In 2026, just 10 plans are available.

Idaho’s Medicare beneficiaries have also found it harder to get the medicines they need in the wake of Biden’s policies — whether due to formulary restrictions or other administrative barriers erected by insurers to reduce access and save money.

All of which means that many seniors are paying more for less as a result of the IRA — a trend which is only likely to accelerate as long as these policies remain in place.

These price increases couldn’t have come at a worse time for Idahoans, many of whom already struggle to afford their medications. According to one recent poll, a third of state patients currently ration their medicines because of cost concerns, whether by cutting pills in half, skipping doses or simply failing to fill their prescriptions. That number will likely rise in the year ahead.

That the damage inflicted by Biden’s policies has gone largely unnoticed by Idaho seniors until now is no accident. In order to avoid announcing sudden Part D rate hikes in the run-up to the 2024 election, the previous administration implemented a jerry-rigged “stabilization” program that effectively subsidized drug coverage for millions of seniors — hiding premium increases until now.

But that initiative has since been scaled back — which is why seniors will soon be bearing the full brunt of the former president’s “reforms.”

Idaho patients should keep this in mind as they shop for their next Part D plan. The higher prices and reduced choices they will face were far from inevitable. In fact, they may never have occurred had Democrats not tampered with a program that was working quite well, as far as entitlement programs go.

The ultimate solution, of course, to our healthcare woes is to get the government out of the sector as much as possible, so that all providers and insurers are forced to compete for consumers’ business. Free-market competition delivers the greatest benefits for patients. Unfortunately, too many in Washington keep taking us in the other direction — and Idahoans are paying the price.

Ron Nate is president of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a public policy think tank located in Boise. Nate holds a Ph.D. in economics and previously served as a member of the Idaho House of Representatives. Drew Johnson is a columnist, health policy analyst and government watchdog.