Bidenomics is a big problem for seniors

The White House has the insulting and infuriating habit of thinking it can spin reality with the American people. If it’s raining, insist the sun is shining! The prime example is the president and his acolytes declaring that life under Bidenomics is good and getting better. 

Of course, that’s a loser’s bet, unless they can prevent people from going to the grocery store and the gas pump, stop them from opening their utility bills or buying a car or securing a mortgage or seeking medical care. No wonder Biden’s approval ratings on the economy continue to tank. 

Another example is the obscenely misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), whose unhinged spending fueled inflationary fires rather than quenching them. Turns out this bill was loaded with climate tax credits and cash outlays that are rewarding politically connected cronies and will end up worsening the environment, not bettering it. 

President Biden speaks about protecting Social Security and Medicare and lowering health care costs, Feb. 9, 2023, at the University of Tampa in Florida. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

But one of the most dangerous parts of this legislation – what Bidenites call a Medicare drug price "negotiation" – is uniquely dishonest and extremely harmful. It will ultimately hurt the health of everyone, many mortally. 

MEDICARE PART D DRUG PRICES INCREASE MORE THAN 200% ON AVERAGE: AARP

In typical Biden fashion, it promises to lower drug prices by "negotiation." There is no negotiation in the sense normal people understand the term. It’s more like "here’s the price or else," the "or else" being a tax going as high as 1,900% of the revenue of the drug. 

The law will throttle the research and development for new, life-saving medicines and the improvement of existing ones. 

Vice President Joe Biden greets President Barack Obama during the health care bill ceremony in the East Room of the White House, March 23, 2010. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Remember those original promises of ObamaCare years ago? You can keep your doctor and your existing insurance and your medical costs will go down! All lies, it turned out. 

What President Biden and his far-left liberal allies are actually up to is make it harder for drug manufacturers to recover costs of doing critical research and development (R&D). It takes over $2 billion and years of testing to successfully bring a new drug to market.  

It’s high risk. If government suffocates the possibility of necessary returns, then guess what? The pace of creation of new medicine shrivels. 

MANCHIN BACKTRACKS, DOWNPLAYS INVOLVEMENT IN INFLATION REDUCTION ACT AFTER CLAIMING HE ‘WROTE’ IT

R&D in countries with Biden-like controls is only a pitiful fraction of our own. Already, in the U.S., critical investments in R&D to treat or cure chronic and rare diseases are being scuttled. But there is another aspect of this law that is truly ugly, coming as it does from politicians posing as champions of Medicare.  

Only liberals would say the IRA – which raids some $280 billion in projected Medicare drug savings to fund the likes of costly new electric vehicles, solar panels, and expanded insurer subsidies – somehow protects Medicare. Worse, these Medicare-funded subsidies were made available immediately while the lion’s share of the IRA’s drug provisions won’t be available to seniors for two to three years. 

So, right now if a healthy 30-something, gainfully employed father and spouse woke up wanting a $7,500 tax credit to buy a costly EV, it’s there for the taking – courtesy of funds meant for Medicare patients. Not so much for a 70-year-old mother and grandmother trying to pay for her medications at the local pharmacy. 

Despite routinely proclaiming themselves as guardians of Medicare, its notable that Democrats are now responsible for the only two major cuts to the program in the last 20 years. Taken together, ObamaCare ($729 billion) and the IRA ($280 billion) have diverted over $1 trillion in funds meant for Medicare to unrelated spending programs. 

ONE YEAR LATER, SENATE REPUBLICANS GIVE INFLATION REDUCTION ACT AN ‘F’: ‘RECKLESS SPENDING SPREE’

During that same time, it took a Republican White House and a full Republican majority in Congress to pass and fund Medicare’s prescription drug benefit program. 

Democrats brag how the IRA’s government "negotiated" drug prices (i.e., price controls) will "lower drug prices." We should start by asking: for whom? The IRA rewards Washington bureaucrats and politicians, as well as health insurers, with collecting and controlling much of the "savings" – not patients. 

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks leaves the U.S. Capitol on May 25, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Second, as we noted there really is no "negotiation" when the government sets a take-it-or-leave-it price for drug makers or they’ll impose up to a 1900% tax. Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, who is also a physician, perfectly captured the lunacy of this in a recent oversight hearing on the IRA, stating, "I don’t know, is a decapitated horse in your bed a voluntary negotiation. I don’t think so." 

The IRA’s drug pricing provisions do not allow a "negotiation" in any sense of the word. It’s a tool of coercion that leads to the bad outcomes price controls always do – rationing, higher costs, less innovation and investment, and greater dependence on foreign suppliers like China, India and Russia.  

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And while the White House congratulated themselves repeatedly on the first-year anniversary of the IRA, older Americans showed little sign of celebrating, with polls showing over 80% of them viewing the bill as a major failure. A near equal percentage said they are not seeing lower drug costs or other consumer prices coming down as promised.  

And more than 90% oppose using Medicare drug savings for unrelated spending to fund liberals’ special interest handouts. 

So, in typical fashion, liberals are now seeking to double the number of drugs subject to government price "negotiation" in Medicare and expand their failures into the private insurance market. Doing so could also double the number of new life-saving medicines that don’t come to market, impacting not just seniors but also millions of other chronic and rare disease sufferers who hold out hope for the next breakthrough. 

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Few of these patients and their families will see much in the way of savings or take solace or benefit from the added government and corporate revenues that would result by expanding this disastrous law. 

But hey, isn’t Bidenomics great? 

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Steve Forbes is chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media.