WASHINGTON — When Vice President Kamala Harris takes the stage at the Democratic National Convention next week, she’ll have a fresh policy achievement to tout: The first round of Medicare-negotiated drug prices.
Harris’ introduction to Americans as the Democratic nominee for president is a second chance for Democrats to actually get credit for one of their biggest legislative accomplishments in the Inflation Reduction Act. The first joint appearance between Harris and President Biden on Thursday offered a preview of what’s to come, with Harris highlighting her role in passing the law that includes Medicare negotiation.
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“I was proud to cast the tie-breaking vote,” she said at the event in Washington, D.C.
While Medicare price negotiation is easy to understand and wildly popular with voters, the Biden administration’s policy-oriented messaging strategy hasn’t been getting through. Only 48% of seniors are aware that President Biden has done anything on drug prices, according to a recent poll by the nonpartisan research nonprofit KFF.
The legislative win, 20 years in the making, was supposed to be a slam-dunk. All Republicans voted against Medicare negotiation. But Biden has bungled opportunities he’s had to brag about the law’s accomplishments — including a high-profile blooper during his presidential debate with former President Trump in which, instead of claiming to have beaten the pharmaceutical industry, he said “We finally beat Medicare.”
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But it might be fortuitous for Harris that the public hasn’t given Biden credit for Medicare drug price negotiation. Her late entry into the race means that many voters are only now forming opinions about her, according to Robert Blendon, a professor emeritus at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who tracks voters’ sentiment on health care and other policies. It’s the perfect time for her to show what she’s done for retirees.
“It’s important that she gets credit for the future that’s distinct from Biden getting credit for the past,” Blendon said.
Harris has the opportunity to change tactics. Political messages sink in better when they focus on specific examples about individual people, Blendon said.
Democrats would do best to avoid drawing attention to the 2026 effective date for negotiated prices, Blendon said, and talk about the benefits that seniors already are receiving from the program. Voters care about what they’re getting right now. Provisions that cap annual spending, limit out-of-pocket costs for insulin to $35 per month, and penalize drugmakers for hiking prices have already gone into effect.
Chris Jennings, who has advised Democrats on health care policy since the Clinton administration, said there is still time for Harris to take credit for Medicare negotiation, and the announcement of negotiated prices is a good opportunity to do so.
“It delivers on their ‘promises made, promises delivered’ agenda of greater affordability,” Jennings said of the Harris campaign.
The Thursday event with Biden and Harris had the air of a campaign rally. They used the opportunity to tie Medicare negotiation to their other initiatives aimed at lower costs, including cracking down on surprise medical bills and barring medical debt from credit reports.
Republicans are trying to put Democrats on the defensive over the drug pricing law by highlighting that it has led to higher premiums. The law caps premium hikes at 6%, or about $2 a month. But the mechanism for capping premiums still leaves some seniors paying for premium increases above 6%, so the administration is giving additional subsidies to insurers to ensure premiums are kept stable. Republicans say that policy is a cover-up and are asking the Government Accountability Office to look into it.
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Former President Trump is still vowing to tie U.S. drug prices to those in other countries, a more aggressive approach than the new Medicare negotiation program. During his term, Trump signed an executive order aimed at prohibiting Medicare from paying more for physician-administered drugs than other developed countries. The Biden administration rescinded the policy after three federal courts stopped it from taking effect.
The negotiated prices that Medicare announced Thursday are still generally higher than what other countries pay.
The global drug price database Navlin analyzed prices for STAT in five wealthy countries: Germany, France, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. For Eliquis, the drug on which Medicare spends the most money, Medicare negotiated the price down to $231. By comparison, the highest list price was $88.30 for a month’s supply in Japan. In Switzerland, which often has the highest prices in Europe, the price was $82.71.
There was one outlier among the 10 drugs. Imburvica is more expensive in Spain at $9,599,51, compared to the Medicare negotiated price of $9,319, though the other countries all paid under $8,000.
Although Medicare significantly lowered costs in the United States, even lower international prices could create an opening for Trump to criticize Harris, who already went after Biden on drug prices in a campaign video on his website. That video was shot last year when Biden was the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate.
“Shortly after taking office, Joe Biden rescinded my executive order, stabbing patients and U.S. citizens, and especially our seniors, right in the back,” Trump said.
