With the holiday season behind us, Medicare Part D open enrollment has just wrapped up. This program gives seniors the gift of peace of mind. For millions of older Americans, Medicare Part D isn’t just a program — it’s a promise. And according to a recent Morning Consult survey for the Medicare Today coalition, 93 percent of seniors say they’re satisfied with their Part D prescription drug coverage.
Despite earning this exceptional approval from constituents, policymakers are advancing proposals that threaten to erode Medicare’s value and the access to care on which seniors depend. Recently announced Most Favored Nation drug-pricing demonstrations would introduce sweeping price controls that could undermine the program’s effectiveness. At the same time, Congress is weighing an expansion of the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare’s drug price-setting authority, potentially doubling down on policies that prioritize cost savings for the federal government over patient care.
Although price control policies are presented as a seemingly beneficial approach, in reality, they would stifle innovation and limit access to existing cures. Seniors want affordability, but not at the expense of choice or quality of care.
Older Americans have voiced their fears about price-control policies for years, beginning with the IRA’s overhaul of Medicare Part D. Those concerns now appear justified: as of result of the IRA, it is projected that the cost of providing Part D benefits will rise by 35 percent in 2026, seven times higher than earlier estimates.
Now, with the introduction of MFN, these worries are compounded, adding another layer of uncertainty to the future of prescription drug access and affordability.
Whether imposed via laws like the IRA or based on prices paid abroad, price-control policies can be detrimental to patients. By allowing the government to set prices, incentives to research and develop drugs will likely diminish, stifling innovation and limiting access to the medicines patients need.
Our latest survey shows that nearly four out of five seniors are concerned about how foreign drug prices are set and the effect they could have if adopted in the United States.
As policymakers use Medicare as a launchpad for this policy, seniors risk becoming unwitting test subjects for MFN — especially if the Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY) metric is used. The QALY, a tool often used by foreign governments that set drug prices, assigns a numerical value to a patient’s life and determines whether and when care is provided. In practice, this approach might discriminate against older Americans, pushing them to the back of the line for treatments that could dramatically improve their quality of life. Importing foreign value structures, such as the QALY, ignores the complexity of the U.S. healthcare system and introduces outside pressures that could lead to devastating decisions about who receives timely access to critical medicines.
If lawmakers truly want to protect seniors’ access to timely care and breakthrough treatments, they must reject policies that jeopardize a program that works. Our survey clearly shows that Medicare Part D has delivered convenience, value and affordability to its beneficiaries. Instead of imposing harmful price controls that risk collapsing the program, we should strengthen what’s already successful.
Medicare isn’t broken — policymakers and the administration must listen to beneficiaries and protect this program.