Weekly Column: Protecting Idaho Taxpayers From Shouldering The Cost Of Inflation Reduction Act Failures

For decades, the saying that “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program” has proven true.  This adage should compel caution from policymakers and the public when confronted with any allegedly “experimental” initiative.  This includes a Biden-Harris Administration  “demonstration” program aimed at hiding the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) unprecedented Medicare Part D premium hikes—a multi-billion dollar diversion being implemented just before the 2024 presidential election. 

Per the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), this legally-dubious funding transfer will cost taxpayers $5 billion in 2025 alone, with future expenditures stacking up to an even higher sum.

Thanks to haphazard drafting and partisan politics, the IRA has proven alarmingly inflationary, in spite of its deceiving title.  When the bill was being considered by Congress, Republicans cautioned the IRA’s price-control-focused overhaul of Medicare’s prescription drug benefit would drive up seniors’ premiums, increase launch prices for new drugs, depress Americans’ access to groundbreaking treatments, and hand China a competitive edge in a crucial sector.  Congressional Democrats and Vice President Harris—who cast the tie-breaking vote to advance the destructive law—dismissed our warnings, and those of patient advocates, working families and economic experts. 

As these concerns increasingly become reality, numerous bipartisan measures have emerged to mitigate the IRA’s harmful consequences.  Moreover, the Finance Committee, where I serve as the lead Republican, came together last year to advance fiscally responsible prescription drug affordability reforms on a bipartisan basis, with the potential to drive down consumer costs at the pharmacy counter. 

Instead of partnering with Congress to avert drastic premium hikes and other dire effects, the Biden-Harris Administration has instead opted to distort an obscure, decades-old provision intended to authorize cost-saving pilot projects.  Under this authority, the Administration aims to paper over Medicare prescription drug premium increases that would otherwise rightly outrage older Americans this Fall.  Under this type of gimmick, virtually any president of either party could justify creative taxpayer subsidies, strategically timed to maximize political gains while sidestepping Congress and skirting oversight by the workers and families our federal health programs should serve.  

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board has similarly raised alarms about the Administration’s costly attempts to cover up this policy blunder, writing in August that Republicans in Congress “ought to be screaming about how the Biden-Harris Administration is sticking it to seniors.”  Rather than simply scream into the abyss, policymakers have an obligation to take meaningful and responsive action.  Just days after the costly “demonstration” program’s announcement, I led colleagues in requesting the Government Accountability Office (GAO) review the action, including for potential violations of federal law through executive overreach, a Biden-Harris Administration hallmark.  I also joined a bicameral request for a budgetary analysis from the Congressional Budget Office. 

While the GAO continues to conduct a comprehensive review, the CBO projects the demonstration itself will increase federal spending by $5 billion next year alone.  CBO also updated its earlier estimated cost of the IRA’s Part D redesign, saying it underestimated actual spending increases by between $10 billion and $20 billion—another example of the IRA’s ballooning costs.

Rather than alleviate financial strain, the IRA runs counter to the Senate Finance Committee’s bipartisan work to drive down costs, instead saddling seniors with narrower benefits and more bureaucracy.  To snatch billions of taxpayer dollars with the stroke of a pen while cheerleading for a law that exacerbated inflation may make for effective politics.  But, when election season ends, Idahoans working paycheck to paycheck to support their families will be left holding an ever-growing bag, burdened not just by what has been, but also by what has been inflicted by the Biden-Harris Administration.

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