JustCare

Tag: President Biden

  • Insulin costs: Biden v. Trump

    Insulin costs: Biden v. Trump

    If you are looking for our next president to lower your health care costs, there are multiple reasons to support President Biden over Donald Trump. One is insulin. Though Trump would like you to think otherwise, Juliette Cubanski and Tricia Neuman explain in a KFF report that Donald Trump did far less to contain the cost of insulin than President Biden.

    To be clear, both President Biden and Donald Trump have lowered the cost of insulin for people with Medicare and for no other cohort of the population. But, access to lower-cost insulin for people with Medicare is far greater under President Biden than it was under President Trump.

    Under President Biden, all 6,000 Medicare Part D prescription drug plans are required to keep the insulin copay at no more than $35 a month. President Trump did not require the Part D plans to charge a copay of no more than $35 a month; he made it voluntary. So, only 38 percent of Part D plans participated when he was president.

    As a result, the Trump administration only helped 800,000 people with Medicare needing insulin. The Biden Administration is helping all 3.3 million people with Medicare needing insulin.

    Under President Biden, all insulin products are covered. Donald Trump only required a subset of insulin products to be covered–one of each dosage form (vial, pen) and insulin type (rapid-acting, short-acting, intermediate-acting, and long-acting).

    Under President Biden, the insulin cap applies to drugs under Medicare Part D and Part B. The Trump administration only applied the cap to Medicare Part D and not to insulin drugs administered by a physician under Part B.

    President Biden is now proposing to ensure that everyone with commercial insurance also enjoys the $35 a month out-of-pocket cap on insulin. In fact, President Biden’s proposal was in the Inflation Reduction Act, but the Republicans took it out before it passed. And, Republicans in Congress want to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which would end the $35 out-of-pocket insulin cap, though Trump has not yet commented on this.

    N.B. Rachel Cohrs Zhang reports for Stat that the idea for the $35 insulin cap came from Eli Lilly. The cap likely helps Lilly’s profits since it boosts insulin sales significantly, as more people can afford it. The cap doesn’t affect the price of the drug. So, everyone with Medicare ends up absorbing insulin’s lower out-of-pocket cost through higher premiums.

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  • Dental crisis in the US: 20 percent of Americans have lost their teeth

    Dental crisis in the US: 20 percent of Americans have lost their teeth

    One in five older adults in the US have lost their teeth. There is a dental care crisis. Jessica Glenza interviews Bernie Sanders for her piece in the Guardian on the need to improve dental care as part of fixing our broken health care system.

    Senator Sanders has introduced a bill in the Senate to expand Medicare dental benefits and improve them in Medicaid. The bill also gives dental benefits to veterans through the Veterans Administration.

    Traditional Medicare does not cover dental care. Medicare Advantage plans sometimes offer limited dental benefits, but they are so limited that people in Medicare Advantage face the same dental issues as people in Traditional Medicare.

    Half of adults in the US have gum disease. Sixty nine million adults have no dental insurance and those who do often have limited coverage. Out-of-pocket costs with insurance are high. Most people can’t afford dental bills that are several thousand dollars.

    Two million Americans went to the hospital because of tooth pain in 2019. Nearly half a million other people went abroad for lower-cost dental care.  Dental care is much less costly in Mexico.

    Having bad teeth can cause serious health issues, including malnutrition. It can be emotionally and psychologically destructive.

    Senator Sanders says that expanding dental coverage in the US is a political winner. The overwhelming majority of Americans support it. He is urging President Biden to include dental benefits in Medicare as part of his re-election platform.

    For his part, President Biden has taken small steps to improve dental coverage in Medicare. For example, some cancer patients with Medicare now have some dental coverage.

    Republicans continue to oppose extra Medicare benefits. They claim they are unaffordable. But, it’s all a question of government priorities. Republicans are happy to approve $900 billion in military spending and tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

    The American Dental Association opposes a dental benefit in Medicare. It fears a large administrative burden on dentists.

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  • Poll: Health care costs are a top economic priority for voters

    Poll: Health care costs are a top economic priority for voters

    As you’ve likely been reading, voters continue to have negative views about the US economy. High health care costs (and inflation, which is actually in check) feed into that view, with voters saying they are big concerns. The Kaiser Family Foundation’s latest poll finds that voters want to hear President Biden and former President Trump discuss these issues.

    Americans believe that their cost of living, including housing, is rising; health care costs also represent a piece of that expense. They do not seem to consider that unemployment is low and the stock market has been climbing. Almost three in four Americans are concerned about paying unexpected medical bills; more than half are worried that they won’t be able to afford their prescription drugs and nearly half express concern about paying their health insurance premiums.

    What’s particularly noteworthy is that even though former President Trump would likely cut some of the benefits voters enjoy and President Biden has worked hard to boost them, nine in ten Republicans say they would vote for former President Trump. Curiously, Republican voters believe that former President Trump did more to address high health care costs than President Biden, although not enough. Nearly six in ten Republicans (59 percent) say Trump did enough to address health care costs, whereas only one third (33 percent) of Democrats say Biden has done enough.

    Voters who say they support Trump recognize that he does not have a vision for replacing the Affordable Care Act, only for ending it. But, they don’t appreciate that President Biden was the Vice President when the ACA was passed and played a significant role in its passage.

    The ACA is not well understood, likely because only a fraction of the population benefits from it today. Most people don’t appreciate the protections it offers people who lose their employer coverage or who are self-employed, particularly those who have pre-existing conditions, and why it needs to be strengthened. Many Republicans suggest they would be happy to see it cut or repealed.

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