Cost of Prescription Drugs fall $2.1 Billion under Obamacare

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In the first full year since President Obama’s health care reform law took effect, the cost of prescription drugs to those on Medicare fell $2.1 billion in 2011.

From the Columbus Dispatch:

In the first full year of the new health-care law, 3.6 million people in the government Medicare program saved $2.1 billion on prescription drugs in 2011, the Obama administration announced yesterday.

The savings are one of the first tangible benefits of the sweeping overhaul that President Barack Obama signed in March 2010.

The new law’s biggest changes, including the guarantee that all Americans can get health coverage even if they are sick, do not go into effect until 2014.

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  • Lillyconte

    Your information is totally WRONG.
    —Medicare Advantage Insurance Rx Co-pays went up on certain drugs in 2016, moving some drugs from Tier 2 to Tier 3. BOTTOM LINE: Those drugs that were $12 in 2015, we’re increased to $47 in 2016. For example, my Fentanyl Patch. Also, certain tests that we’re free, like a Vision Exam, now has a co-pay of $35. Other Co-Pays were increased across the board. All you would have had to do was to get a Seniors Medicare Booklet and look at the 2015 and 2016 Plan Changes–you would have had correct information for your article.

  • TexPharm

    This is deliberately misleading your readers. Your title sounds as if the federal expenditure on drugs has decreased, and leaves your reader with the impression ACA is responsible for the savings. In fact the article and your small gray print are about reductions in the amount Medicare Part D recipients spent on drugs. ACA has INCREASED federal expenditures on drugs, and we are borrowing the money from China to pay for it.

    •  @TexPharm There is no misrepresentation of the facts here.  You clearly misunderstood the article you read.  The savings are attributed to PPACA.  Please substantiate your hyperbolic assertions that federal expenditures have increased under PPACA and that the US has borrowed money from China to pay for it.
       
       You know not what you speak of — hence your regurgitation of partisan GOP talking points not grounded in facts or reality.  
       
      Fact: The prescription drug provision phases out a gap in coverage instituted by Dubya.  Fact: this saves seniors millions.  Fact: “beneficiaries who hit the so-called doughnut hole in coverage received a $250 rebate check under a provision of the new law.”