On Friday, President Joe Biden announced a new set of steps to lower health care costs, including a crackdown on “junk” insurance plans that use customers as “suckers,” updated advice to minimise unforeseen medical expenses, and an effort to lower medical debt associated with credit cards.
Projected Savings for Medicare Members and Crackdown on ‘Junk’ Insurance Plans
Building on prior efforts with the Department of Health and Human Services to control healthcare prices, Biden is taking new steps. Publish updated projections that suggest 18.7 million Medicare members, including those who are older, will save $400 annually on pharmaceutical expenses by 2025. as a result of the president capping out-of-pocket expenditure as part of the Inflation Reduction Act from the previous year.
Preparing for his reelection campaign in 2024 as voters’ top issue continues to be inflation. The Democratic president has emphasised a number of government incentives as well as his initiatives to assist families in budgeting their spending. in order to promote the private sector’s development of modern computer processors, electric cars, and sustainable energy.
Republican legislators have criticised Biden’s policies, claiming that they have led to rising costs that are detrimental to families’ well-being.
Short-term insurance plans, according to Biden, are among the “junk” insurance plans that his administration is targeting. When people switch companies and still require temporary health insurance, that might result in basic coverage being denied.
Closing the gaps that permit insurers to provide products is the goal of the new proposed regulations. This has the potential to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions and sell insurance that offers scant or no coverage.
President Biden Highlights Fairness in Healthcare
According to Biden, “fairness is something we kind of expect in America, even though it sounds corny.” And nobody I know likes to be perceived as having been taken advantage of.
At a White House gathering to highlight the project, Biden asked Cory Dowd to share his experience. In 2019, Dowd, who had previously served in Ghana with the Peace Corps, bought a high-deductible health insurance plan. However, he was unable to enrol in a student health plan until he began graduate school. He believed that the strategy would safeguard him in the event of a medical emergency.
But he needed emergency surgery to remove his appendix a few weeks before he started school. A few months later, the hospital contacted to inform him that he would have to pay more than $37,000 out of pocket since his insurance would only pay for a small percentage of the cost.
The Treasury Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are also looking for information on third-party credit cards and loans that are explicitly intended to finance medical expenses. People who require medical attention may be deterred from seeking it because of the greater expenses and interest rates.
In his speech, the president again emphasised prior initiatives to lower healthcare expenses. It includes a strategy enabling Medicare to bargain for reduced prescription medication costs. And a $35 monthly insulin price cap for beneficiaries of Medicare Part B.
