There’s some fascinating new polling out about the health care provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act.
You may ask, what health care provisions? I thought the Inflation Reduction Act was all about climate.
But no, it also contained robust provisions to help lower health care and drug costs for people like you and me. It’s reduced Obamacare premiums for American families by $2,400 annually.
It has capped insulin costs to $35 monthly for everyone on Medicare. It provides free vaccines to seniors. Reigned in drug companies, egregious price increases. Starting in 2024, it will cap prescription costs for seniors to $2,000 yearly.
Finally, it gave Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices.
What does this have to do with polling?
The most popular provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act are the ones that have to do with cutting health care costs and drug prices.
The top one in popularity is capping insulin costs for seniors. The second most popular is allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. 81% of Americans support that provision. It should be no surprise that the pharmaceutical industry hates this provision.
They lobbied hard against it. They spent $100 million lobbying against the Inflation Reduction Act. Because of that, not a single Republican supported this bill. Big Pharma isn’t done fighting it.
Merck is suing. PhRMA is suing. Every big pharma company is suing to stop the price controls. But what should surprise us just a little bit more? The fact that Republicans are siding with Big Pharma over us.
Repealing these drug pricing provisions is one of their top priorities. They’ve already introduced the bill. And if they take back control, they’ll pass it.
That’s what’s interesting about reading polling. It’s almost without exception the more Americans like something, the more Republicans and their corporate donors want to take it away.