Tag: medicare

Biden and Harris Raided Medicare to Fund Green New Deal: Premiums Are Now Set to Spike

When Democrats rammed through the Inflation Reduction Act during the days they controlled all of Washington, D.C., it ignited a chain reaction that led to higher Medicare costs for America’s senior citizens.

“Nearly two years after its passage, the IRA has diverted nearly $260 billion from the projected Medicare ‘savings’  to pay for special interest handouts like large tax credits for costly electric vehicles, enormous subsidies paid to big health insurer-PBM corporations, and funding health care programs for illegal immigrants,” Ron Fitzwater, Chief Executive Officer of the Missouri Pharmacy Association, wrote in an Op-Ed in the Missouri Times.

“The Biden-Harris administration is not protecting Medicare; they’re stealing from it,” he wrote.

According to Politico, the chain reaction began when the act shifted the burden of paying for prescription medicine from seniors to insurance companies.

Then came what could have been predicted: Insurance companies hiked their premiums for 2025.

Fitwater, in his Op-Ed, said increases were coming in at 179 percent.

But since that was going to hit right before the election, there was one more step – a federal bailout that has the taxpayer-funded federal treasury taking the hit for what the IRA caused.

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Biden-Harris Regime Accused of Exploiting $5 Billion Medicare Fund to Manipulate Election Outcomes

In yet another blatant attempt to secure votes ahead of the 2024 election, the Biden-Harris regime has found itself embroiled in a massive $5 billion Medicare scandal.

The administration’s $5 billion Medicare stabilization program, announced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in July 2024, is part of a three-year demonstration project intended to keep premiums lower for seniors.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has sent an urgent letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ), calling for an investigation into whether the move violates the Hatch Act, which forbids the use of taxpayer funds to influence elections.

“We write to you today seeking additional information on the Biden-Harris Administration’s plan to spend over $5 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies to insurers to offset Medicare premium increases before the November election,” Sen. Paul wrote to Corey Amundson, the Chief of the Public Integrity Section at the DOJ.

“My colleagues and I are concerned that the Biden-Harris Administration is inappropriately using taxpayer funds to mask the defective Medicare Part D policies enacted as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022. Given the IRA’s central role in the Biden-Harris Administration’s presidential campaign, these concerns warrant additional investigation.”

It’s no secret that Medicare premiums have skyrocketed, thanks in large part to the IRA’s rushed and poorly designed reforms. In fact, Medicare premiums surged by a staggering 21% in 2023 alone, leaving seniors struggling to afford their prescriptions.

Now, with premiums expected to rise even higher in 2024, the Biden administration’s convenient “solution” has arrived just in time for election season—a move that Paul says smacks of political interference.

The Kentucky senator’s letter goes on to highlight the dubious legality of the administration’s actions.

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Walgreens Agrees to Pay $107 Million to Settle Allegations of Falsely Billing Medicare, Medicaid

Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc., one of the nation’s largest retail pharmacy chains, has agreed to pay $106.8 million to settle allegations of submitting false claims to federal health care programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a press release.

The allegations involve claims for prescriptions that were processed but never dispensed, spanning a period from 2009 to 2020. This settlement resolution falls under the False Claims Act, a tool for addressing fraud involving taxpayer-funded health care programs.

The DOJ alleged that Walgreens billed federal health care programs for prescriptions that beneficiaries never picked up, allowing the company to receive millions of dollars in payments for medications that were never provided.

Walgreens, which is based in Deerfield, Illinois, did not admit liability in agreeing to settle.

“Due to a software error, we inadvertently billed some government health care programs for a relatively small number of prescriptions our patients submitted but never picked up,” the company said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times.

“We corrected the error, reported the issue to the government, and voluntarily refunded all overpayments. We appreciate the government acknowledged our compliance efforts as part of resolving this matter.”

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Fact Check: Kamala Harris Claims Trump ‘Tried to Cut Medicare Every Year He Was President’

CLAIM: Vice President Kamala Harris claimed during a speech on Friday that former President Donald Trump has tried to cut Medicare “every year.”

VERDICT: False. Trump did not try to cut Medicare during his time in office; the Biden-Harris administration has cut Medicare Advantage, which a majority of Medicare beneficiaries use over traditional Medicare.

Harris said during an address on her proposed economic policy, “He [Trump] tried to cut Medicare every year he was president. Threatening a program that tens of millions of seniors count on.”

However, despite Harris’s claim, this is not true. An NBC News fact check found that Trump’s White House budget proposals did not call for benefit cuts to Medicare.

NBC News wrote:

His fiscal 2020 blueprint called for Medicare changes to lower payments to providers and suppliers through new incentives and a lower inflation benchmark. Biden and Democrats embraced the same types of “cuts” under Obamacare, which extended the solvency of Medicare by lowering payments to hospitals and insurers, in exchange for more customers.

Sahil Kapur, a senior political reporter for NBC News, wrote, “Democrats have been using this line for years. It’s false. Trump’s budgets didn’t cut Medicare benefits; they targeted providers & suppliers—the same “cuts” Dems enacted in the ACA.”

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COVID-19 relief bill embraced by Democrats will cause billions of dollars in cuts to critical programs such as Medicare

Under the Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, bills that add to the national debt cause automatic cuts to programs such as Medicare.

Federal aid programs for farmers, the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, Medicare, the Social Services Block Grant Program, and more would be subject to devastating cuts. 

Social Security and low-income programs such as food stamps would be exempt from cuts.

To prevent budget cuts, Democrats need to get 60 votes in the Senate, which would require the support of 10 Republicans. 

However, Democrats are planning to use a process known as budget reconciliation, which would allow them to pass the COVID-19 relief bill without 60 votes in the Senate. 

“The cuts would be huge,” said Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told NBC. “It’s a critical issue, which, at some point, is going to have to be dealt with.”

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