One of the things we sometimes say to be nice is that Joe Biden cannot possibly be in command of his administration – that it must be rogue actors making these terrible policy decisions for him.
What can’t be denied is that his administration, whether he’s actually in charge of it or not, is abusing American seniors just trying to get their medicine. The cure – as for many of the world’s problems – is to go back to what Donald Trump had already been doing.
This year, premiums are up more than 20 percent for the more than 50 million Americans enrolled in Medicare Part D. In 2025, it’s estimated that premiums could go up another 50 percent! What could actually lower healthcare costs for seniors is if the federal government brings back the Trump Rebate Rule.
In 2020, President Trump announced a policy that provided seniors the chance to capture the rebates that drug manufacturers pay back to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) for preferred placement on the insurers’ drug formularies. The rebate was designed to help seniors with very expensive medications. At the time, Trump proposed a concrete plan for helping those seniors, and the total savings could be billions and billions for them.
Trump said the rebate rule “will save American seniors billions of dollars by preventing middlemen — the famous middlemen, they call them — from ripping off Medicare patients with high prescription prices.”
“So, the patients are going to be now getting the benefit, instead of these very wealthy individuals,” Trump said at the time. “Today’s action ends this injustice and requires that these discounts go directly to the people. These are the people that need it.”