Medicare Draws Ire for Plan to Hold Down Drug Premium Increases

A Biden administration plan to contain likely premium hikes for Medicare prescription drug coverage next year is raising policy questions, drawing partisan attacks, and could prompt a legal challenge.

The Medicare Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration “will shift financial liability away from large health insurers and onto American taxpayers,” Republican lawmakers said in a letter this week seeking Congressional Budget Office review of the proposal. The conservative American Action Forum estimates the demonstration would pay drug plans $7.2 billion, making it “not so much a demonstration as it is a bailout.”

The program is designed to address likely premium increases ...