Imagine facing the daily challenges of managing your chronic condition, and then discovering that the medication vital to your well-being is priced beyond reach. You grapple with the constant burden of paying for your medication, often sacrificing necessities for you and your loved ones. Just when you manage to stabilize your finances, the medication’s cost skyrockets, ballooning by almost 50% since you began relying on it, now tallying up to a staggering $10,000 annually, and you see no help in sight.
Because of stories like this, President Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act, offering relief with high prescription drug costs to millions of Americans. This story is not a hypothetical. It’s Samantha Reid’s reality. National Women’s Health Week (NWHW) is a perfect time to highlight how the President’s lower cost prescription drug law is helping women afford their prescription drugs.
Samantha’s story underscores why the Inflation Reduction Act is so significant for women. Among people with Medicare, women have disproportionately higher rates of some health conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, fibromyalgia, osteoporosis, and certain types of cancer, which can lead to high prescription drug costs. The President’s law is providing relief now for women with Medicare by capping out-of-pocket drug costs, requiring drug companies to pay a rebate to Medicare if they raise drug prices faster than inflation, and providing additional savings to those eligible for Medicare’s Extra Help program.
In 2020, about 733,000 women enrolled in Medicare Part D and Part B would have benefited from the Inflation Reduction Act’s $35 per month cap on out-of-pocket costs for Medicare-covered insulin products. Women with Medicare paid approximately $133.4 million in out-of-pocket costs for Part D covered vaccines, averaging about $68 per enrollee in 2021. Those women would not have paid anything out of pocket for recommended vaccines covered under Part D if the Inflation Reduction Act vaccine provision had been in effect in 2021. Thanks to newly expanded eligibility for the Extra Help program, about 857,000 women who likely meet the requirements for the program but are not yet enrolled are projected to save $1,000 or more in 2025. These provisions highlight the Act’s significant impact in promoting women’s health and financial well-being.
The Inflation Reduction Act represents a significant step forward in ensuring equitable access to affordable health care. As we observe National Women’s Health Week, a week dedicated to empowering women to take charge of their health journeys and spotlighting health issues unique to women, let’s recognize how President Biden’s new prescription drug law promotes women’s economic security. Learn more about how the Inflation Reduction Act is benefiting women here and for more information on the Inflation Reduction Act and Medicare, visit LowerDrugCosts.gov.
