Washington, DC — House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) issued the following statement on the Biden-Harris administration’s drug pricing program:

“The Biden-Harris administration’s inflation reduction bill is already failing — it’s driving up list prices for prescription drugs that seniors rely on to stay healthy. This scheme is also hampering research and development of the next treatment or cure for Americans battling diseases like cancer. In addition, the IRA has driven up Medicare Part D premiums, which the administration is desperately trying to hide by giving away taxpayer money to big insurance companies. If this administration were serious about reducing the cost of health care, it would support bipartisan solutions, like the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act, which passed the House with overwhelming support.”

The truth about the IRA:

Increased premiums and list prices for medicines:

• Introductory prices for new medicines increased 35 percent after the passage of the IRA.
• Part D premiums have skyrocketed, with the plan’s average monthly offering increasing 179 percent nationwide. As a result, the government is now spending $5 billion for 2025 alone to hide the increased premiums from retirees. This is on top of the billions already spent on IRAs to artificially suppress premium increases.
• The number of stand-alone Medicare Part D plans seniors can choose from dropped by 11 percent compared to the previous year.

Fewer treatments and cures for patients:

• As predicted, the IRA is also calculation Since the IRA was passed, 36 research programs and the development of 21 drugs have been stopped.

Misguided politics:

• Many of these drugs have already been offered at significant discounts as a result of negotiations in the private market, and there is no guarantee that seniors will benefit from these prices while plans are still considering how to structure their drug lists.
• While the government is touting savings figures based on 2023 data, the actual savings this policy could deliver in 2026 are likely to be much lower as more competitors enter the market and privately negotiated discounts on these products are likely to have increased.
• In fact, it is quite possible that the actual savings from these new fixed prices in 2026 would be less than the $5 billion that will be newly spent in 2025 to hide the Part D premium increases caused by the IRA.
• The White House fraudulently uses list prices of products in its savings calculations, which do not reflect what Medicare beneficiaries actually pay.

Increased bureaucracy:

• The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has hired 91 new officials to set drug prices.
• The IRA provided HHS with $3 billion in taxpayer funds to establish the new pricing agency.