Much of Democrats' pitch to elderly Americans in the midterms comes years late and billions of dollars short.
at The American Prospect, the Inflation Reduction Act enables Medicare to negotiate the prices of 10 drugs at first, with more added in subsequent years, and it caps out-of-pocket drug spending at $2,000. But the new drug prices don’t take effect until 2026, and the cap doesn’t take full effect until 2025 — that is, after the next presidential election — though a $4,000 cap will be in place for 2024.
These delays are ridiculous. Any functioning state ought to be able to carry out a handful of price negotiations in a few weeks, if not hours, and there is no reason to limit the number of drugs to just 10 at first or indeed to limit the number at all. Doing so effectively makes the bill more expensive, since Medicare will save less money.As Dayen points out, the whole of original Medicare took just one year to implement.
All this throws a wrench into Democrats’ messaging. Right now, they are rightly trumpeting what they’ve done with the Inflation Reduction Act, but the drug price measures come with numerous asterisks that step on the messaging. “Vote for us — we helped you starting in 3½ years” isn’t an argument likely to spark enthusiasm.
Even Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., understands that the slow rollout is folly — and he blames his fellow moderate, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz. “We had a senator from Arizona who basically didn’t let us go as far as we needed to go with our negotiations and made us wait two years," he said inTrump, for all his flaws, instinctively understood what to do in a situation like those the Democrats face.