How Kamala Harris Doubled Drug Prices for Seniors

By Rep. Matt Gaetz (R)

Kamala Harris has been Vice President for more than three years. As Cactus Jack Garner, FDR’s Vice President once famously quipped: The job is “not worth a bucket of warm piss.” When she rarely comes out of her box to do softball interviews, she leverages the mushy role of the Veep to both claim credit for things she didn’t do (like exiting Afghanistan, although she has “no regrets” over the deaths during the botched withdrawal) and blames others for things she was supposed to do but didn’t (like being “Border Czar” and fixing the illegal immigration invasion).

So while it’s a mushy job and she hasn’t had any real responsibilities or experience, there is only one important constitutional role the Vice President does play: presiding over the Senate and casting tie-breaking votes. And boy, does she brag about being the tie-breaking vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). It’s true: Without Harris, the IRA wouldn’t be law. But frankly, it would be better for seniors in America if Harris had never been Vice President.

Why? Well, under the IRA, which is now law, Democrats added out-of-pocket caps on Medicare Part D costs. Sounds great, right? But the caps can’t work by themselves. It does no good to a senior to have prices for insulin be capped at $35 per month if the premium doubles or triples. You’re saving a few bucks a month in order to spend hundreds more per year for coverage—robbing Peter to pay Paul.

But this is exactly how Kamala Harris’ IRA has worked. In 2024 alone, Biden’s own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reported that premiums were up 21 percent. And Biden’s own CMS reported that in 2025, the bid rates would spike another 180 percent. We know that the Biden-Harris administration has reason to hide the ball, and their own numbers showing Medicare Part D premiums increasing 57 percent per year is probably a low estimate. Seniors are about to get hit, right after the election, and hit hard.

But it gets worse. Every year, CMS releases estimated premiums for plans under Medicare at the very end of July. Every year! Not this year, though. It wouldn’t be convenient to show that the Biden-Harris policies that are responsible for $4 and $5 gas, increased heating-oil prices, and increased prices of groceries are also going to be responsible for the largest effective hike of prescription-drug prices for seniors in history. So this year, CMS didn’t release the information that seniors rely upon to plan their Medicare Part D enrollment. Rather, they announced an unlawful “demonstration program” to shovel out additional cash to hide the price hike—until after the election. But they didn’t release the price guides.

And that demonstration program won’t last forever, and prices are going to balloon. As the Committee to Unleash Prosperity noted: “Medicare’s drug program is suddenly under severe financial stress, with insurers to exit the market and seniors to lose coverage unless insurers are bailed out tens of billions of dollars. The ‘root cause’ is the IRA.”

It’s not just prices: Since Harris’ tie-breaking vote to pass the IRA, at least 36 research programs into drugs and at least 21 drugs have been abandoned. According to a University of Chicago study, this will rob Americans of 135 life-saving medicines over the next 15 years.

But hey, “out-of-pocket” caps, right? America’s seniors deserve better than this.