I have read the Medicare premium will not increase next year because it’s was raised too high to cover some alshimer drug that decreased in price..
According to Kaiser Family Foundation ...
“Back in November 2021, [PRIOR] to the release of the preliminary national coverage determination and the drop in the price of Aduhelm, CMS announced a 14.5% hike in Medicare Part B premium for 2022. The increase in the premium - from $148.50 in 2021 to $170 in 2022 - was based on a “high cost” scenario that took into account the potential increase in Medicare Part B spending for Aduhelm, [AMONG OTHER (unspecified) FACTORS]. CMS attributed about half of the premium increase to the need to boost revenues to cover higher projected Part B spending for this one drug alone.
“[ONLY A SMALL FRACTION] of Medicare beneficiaries [ARE LIKELY TO USE THE DRUG].”
The article basically says that the half of the 2022 increase would bring in $30 billion to cover the cost of the drug if used by 500,000 Medicare beneficiaries. I did the math. 30 billion divided by half a million is $600,000 per benficiary. Yet the drug was expected to have an annual pric tag of $56,000/year.
So where did/does the other $544,000 go? I would also like to know if this drug is sold in non-US countries and whether the US is subsidizing the cost outside the US b/c the manufacturer Biogen are prohibited by other nations from charging more?
Only 1 month after the Medicare premium recommendation was set for 2022, in December 2021, the manufacturer of Aduhelm cut it’s average price in half to $28,200. The feral givernment being what it is of course it took 4 months to reassess what the real premium 2022 increase should be, and then determined that it would be too difficult to implement (update computer systems, if you can believe that) and anyway they claim their hands are tied by the law in reassessing in a given year.
If you go to the Medicare site, you will see that for 2022, without the alzheimers drug considered at all for 2022, the premium would have increased from $148.50 in 2021 to $160.30. And had they priced the drug at $28,500, the premium would have added only $6.20 to $166.50.
So the givernment got you to focus on the cost of the drug as the driver, and they with big hearts will try to “correct it” but claim the reduction is FJB caring for you in an election year! But the 2022 premium increase was only covering ~10% of the “cost”, where is the other 90% going?