Jacob Gardenswartz
“Low INSULIN PRICING was gotten for millions of Americans by me, and the Trump Administration, not by Crooked Joe Biden. He had NOTHING to do with it.”
Former President Donald Trump in a Truth Social post, June 8
Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that he — and never President Joe Biden — deserves credit score for decreasing older Americans’ prescription drug costs, particularly for insulin.
In a June 8 post on Truth Social, the previous president’s social platform, Trump wrote: “Low INSULIN PRICING was gotten for millions of Americans by me, and the Trump Administration, not by Crooked Joe Biden. He had NOTHING to do with it.”
Trump once more claimed sole credit score for decreasing insulin costs throughout the June 27 presidential debate in Atlanta. After Biden touted the $35 month-to-month out-of-pocket cap for Medicare sufferers mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act, Trump responded: “I’m the one that got the insulin down for the seniors. I took care of the seniors.”
It’s not simply the previous president making such claims. Fox News anchor John Roberts and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican, each have mentioned the Biden administration is mistaken to take credit score for decreasing insulin prices.
Because drug costs and Medicare will possible be points within the presidential marketing campaign, we dug into the information surrounding these claims.
The Trump Administration’s Program
Trump is right that his administration enacted a program to decrease insulin prices for some sufferers on Medicare.
In July 2020, Trump signed an executive order establishing the “Part D Senior Savings Model,” a brief, voluntary program run by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that allow some Medicare Part D prescription drug plans cap month-to-month out-of-pocket insulin copay prices at $35 or much less. It lined at the least one insulin product of every dosage and sort.
The program started Jan. 1, 2021, and ran by Dec. 31, 2023. In 2022, the Trump-era program included a complete of two,159 Medicare drug plans, and CMS estimated that greater than 800,000 Medicare beneficiaries who use insulin might have benefited from it that 12 months.
The Department of Health and Human Services has estimated that greater than 1.5 million Medicare beneficiaries paid greater than $35 a month for insulin in 2020, earlier than Trump’s program took impact. An analysis by the Rand Corp., a nonpartisan assume tank, confirmed this system diminished members’ out-of-pocket insulin prices by $198 to $441 per 12 months on common, relying on their Medicare plan.
The Inflation Reduction Act Provisions
The Inflation Reduction Act, which Congress handed and Biden signed into legislation in August 2022, included an insulin provision that went additional than Trump’s voluntary initiative.
The act did cap out-of-pocket prices of insulin for Medicare sufferers at $35 per thirty days. But whereas the Trump program utilized solely to sure Medicare Part D plans, the act mandated that each one Medicare drug applications cap out-of-pocket insulin prices — together with these in what’s referred to as Medicare Part B, which pays for medical gear equivalent to insulin pumps. The act’s insulin provisions took impact Jan. 1, 2023, for Part D plans and July 1 of that 12 months for Part B.
The act additionally mandated that the out-of-pocket value cap apply to all insulin merchandise a given Medicare plan covers, not only a subset.
Taken collectively, these provisions imply a far larger variety of Medicare beneficiaries stand to profit from the act’s insulin provisions — together with folks receiving insulin by way of a pump, who had been not noted of the Trump-era program.
CMS estimates that greater than 3.3 million Medicare beneficiaries use a number of of the frequent types of insulin. Although a few of these folks had been possible already paying lower than $35 per thirty days for his or her medicines, the Inflation Reduction Act benefited way over the 800,000 sufferers affected by Trump’s program.
“It’s likely a larger population than under the Trump administration’s model,” mentioned Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the Program on Medicare Policy at KFF, a well being info nonprofit that features KFF Health News.
“The Trump administration did establish this voluntary model, and one perhaps could view that as some precedent for what we saw in the Inflation Reduction Act,” Cubanski added. “But I think it’s inaccurate to state that President Biden had nothing to do with enabling millions of Americans to benefit from lower insulin copayments.”
Preliminary analysis exhibits the Inflation Reduction Act’s insulin provisions had a larger common monetary profit than these in Trump’s program. Insulin-using older Americans had been estimated to save lots of an annual common of $501 per particular person, HHS figures show.
The Inflation Reduction Act has additionally had an affect past Medicare. After the legislation handed, some pharmaceutical firms — together with Eli Lilly and Co., Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, and Civica Rx — self-imposed value caps for all insured insulin customers, not simply Medicare sufferers. During his 2023 State of the Union handle, Biden proposed expanding this benefit to all insulin sufferers, and he’s made that time a staple of his marketing campaign appearances.
“I’m determined to make that apply to every American, not just seniors, in the second term,” he mentioned at a marketing campaign occasion in May in Philadelphia.
The Stakes for the 2024 Election
Beyond insulin merchandise, the Inflation Reduction Act caps complete out-of-pocket prescription prices at $2,000 yearly for folks with Medicare drug plans beginning in 2025, down from $3,300 this 12 months for many Medicare beneficiaries.
But each congressional Republican opposed the Inflation Reduction Act, together with its insulin financial savings provisions, in 2022, and the legislation is weak to repeal ought to Trump take the White House. Trump has repeatedly criticized the legislation and referred to as for overturning a few of its provisions. He has not specified how he would handle its well being measures.
In an electronic mail change with KFF Health News, Trump marketing campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt highlighted drug financial savings applications the previous president instituted throughout his time period in workplace, however repeatedly declined to extrapolate on, or defend, Trump’s declare that Biden deserves no credit score for decreasing insulin prices.
Asked whether or not Trump supposed to take care of the Inflation Reduction Act’s insulin provisions ought to he win a second time period in workplace, Leavitt wrote, “President Trump will do everything possible to lower drug costs for Americans when he’s back in the White House, just like he accomplished in his first term.”
Our Ruling
Trump can declare some credit score for decreasing insulin prices for seniors, as his administration superior a voluntary program to take action.
But his declare that Biden had “NOTHING to do with it” is patently false. The Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed into legislation, imposed a compulsory Medicare insulin value cap that utilized throughout this system, benefiting a considerably bigger variety of insulin customers — together with folks not enrolled in Medicare.
We price Trump’s declare False.
Sources:
Civica Rx, “Civica to Manufacture and Distribute Affordable Insulin,” March 3, 2022
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “Part D Senior Savings Model,” accessed July 2, 2024
CMS, “President Trump Announces Lower Out of Pocket Insulin Costs for Medicare’s Seniors,” May 26, 2020
CNN, “READ: Biden-Trump Debate Transcript,” June 28, 2024
Eli Lilly and Co., “Lilly Cuts Insulin Prices by 70% and Caps Patient Insulin Out-of-Pocket Costs at $35 Per Month,” March 1, 2023
Email change with Karoline Leavitt, Donald J. Trump 2024 marketing campaign nationwide press secretary, July 1, 2024
Facebook.com, post by @MikeHuckabee, June 10, 2024
Federal Registrar, “Access to Affordable Life-Saving Medications,” July 24, 2020
Department on Health and Human Services, “Insulin Affordability and the Inflation Reduction Act: Medicare Beneficiary Savings by State and Demographics,” Jan. 24, 2023
KFF, “Changes to Medicare Part D in 2024 and 2025 Under the Inflation Reduction Act and How Enrollees Will Benefit,” April 20, 2023
Novo Nordisk, “Novo Nordisk To Lower U.S. Prices of Several Pre-Filled Insulin Pens and Vials up to 75% for People Living With Diabetes in January 2024,” March 14, 2023
Phone interview with Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of KFF’s Program on Medicare Policy, June 16, 2024
Rand Corp., “Evaluation of the Part D Senior Savings Model,” May 2023
Republican Study Committee, “Fiscal Sanity to Save America,” March 20, 2024
Sanofi, “Sanofi Capping Its Insulin to a $35 Out-of-Pocket Costs in the U.S.,” June 1, 2023
Stat, “Biden and Trump Are Fighting To Claim Credit for $35 Insulin. It Was Actually a Pharma Giant’s Idea,” June 13, 2024
The White House, “FACT SHEET: President Biden’s Cap on the Cost of Insulin Could Benefit Millions of Americans in All 50 States,” March 2, 2023
The White House, “Remarks by President Biden and Vice President Harris at a Campaign Event | Philadelphia, PA,” May 29, 2024
The White House, “Remarks of President Joe Biden — State of the Union Address as Prepared for Delivery,” Feb. 7, 2023
Truthsocial.com, post by @realDonaldTrump, June 8, 2024
X.com, post by @justinbaragona, June 3, 2024