This weekend, the US Senate is taking up the new Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), moving it ahead under its special “budget reconciliation” process that will preclude any filibuster from opponents. After months of delays and painstaking negotiations, our own New York Senator Schumer, the Majority Leader, has closed the deal with his colleagues, and it’s likely to pass in the next few days. After that, it will be quickly taken up by the House of Representatives, which will consider via special proxy voting procedures since they have already recessed for their August summer break, and then go to President Biden for a signing ceremony.

We and our partners and allies in Health Care for America Now’s New York State Network have spent the last 18 months engaging with our state’s two senators and House delegation. Our goal has been to make sure that good stuff got into this bill and that bad stuff was kept out, and that sufficient savings were created and revenues raised in fair and just ways to pay for all the bill’s provisions.  

While we didn’t get everything we were all pushing for from the outset of our efforts, what has made it to the finish line for health care is all good, and lays out a foundation to build upon going forward. As is always the case in legislative advocacy, what didn’t make it this time, we take forward into coming election seasons and congressional sessions – our work continues and we fight on.

Here’s what the IRA does to improve health care:

• Requires Medicare to negotiate to lower prices for high-cost prescription drugs, including insulin.
• Creates rebate penalties on drug corporations when they raise their prices above the general inflation rate.
• Caps the amount of co-pays that people on Medicare Part D have to pay for medicines at $2,000/year.
• Caps the monthly co-pays for insulin to $35 per prescription.
• Makes all vaccines free for people on Medicare.
• Expands eligibility to Medicare Part D’s “Low Income Subsidy” (aka “Extra Help”) to more low-income people.
• Slows the annual growth of Medicare Part D premiums.
• Continues for three more years the expanded health insurance premium subsidies for people and families who buy their own coverage on the Affordable Care Act online marketplaces (here in New York: “New York State of Health”.)

The IRA’s tax fairness provisions include:

• Creating a minimum corporate tax of 15% on booked profits, as part of an international agreement among the G20 nations.
• Creating a new 1% excise tax on corporate stock buybacks that are used to inflate stock prices and dividends for shareholders and corporate CEOs.
• Providing more funds to the IRS to go after ultra-rich tax cheats who don’t pay their fair share or what they owe.

How New Yorkers can help get this bill over the finish line:

• Contact our two US Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to a) thank them for their leadership to get a final IRA deal negotiated with their colleagues, and b) get the job done over this weekend.
• Contact your own US Representative to urge they take up the IRA bill as soon as the Senate is done.
• Use phone, emails, and social media platforms to contact lawmakers and your own family, friends, and colleagues!

Many of the health care provisions in the IRA are historic. Because of everyday people pressure, Congress is finally poised to successfully take on and prevail over Big Pharma FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!  Needless to say, the drug industry is fiercely opposed to IRA, and is pulling out all the stops to protect their long-running price-gouging and profiteering. They are openly voicing threats to exact revenge on supportive lawmakers going forward. We all know that we here in the US pay way more for the same drugs than patients do in any other country, and that the drug industry is far and away among the most profitable in the world and has rigged the system in their favor for years.

Similarly, Wall Street is strongly opposing the IRA’s tax fairness provisions that for the first time in decades starts to close special tax breaks and loopholes that allow large corporations and the ultra-rich to avoid paying any taxes — again, because of people power. This too is historic, and again begins to turn the political tide on an industry long all-powerful in Congress.

It’s been a long haul to get to this point where some good things are about to get done, and some long-entrenched industries successfully challenged. We couldn’t have made it without your support and taking action. The IRA’s goals and provisions are VERY popular with voters despite being opposed by the vested special interests.

It’s that time of year again! …when we all gather to celebrate the anniversaries of the “Big Three” of our nation’s bedrock and very popular social programs: Medicare and Medicaid (July 30), and Social Security (August 14.) These events that we organize annually are always very popular with our partners and supporters, and we invite all to be with us!

Join us on Friday July 29 @ 11 a.m. when we’ll be holding a pandemic-safe celebration on the plaza out front of 780 Third Avenue in midtown Manhattan (@ 48^th St.), the office building where Senators Gillibrand and Schumer NYC offices are located. Members of their district office staffs will be joining us since both Senators will be down in DC finishing up work on several important bills before the recess for their August break.

Here are links to all the details:

• Action Network
• Facebook

During our event, we’ll be talking about:

• How everyday New Yorkers and our families benefit from these 3 programs.
• How we want Congress to protect these programs and address threats to them.
• How we want Congress to improve and expand these programs.

We’ll also be celebrating an exciting new, historic health care bill that is poised to be passed by Congress next week that will:

• Negotiate lower drug prices with #Big Pharma for Medicare (first time ever!)
• Limit how much drug corporations can raise their prices each year for Medicare (first time ever!)
• Cap annual out-of-pocket costs for Rx drugs for people on Medicare (first time ever!)
• Expand financial assistance to more low-income people for Rx drug co-pays.
• Lower annual increases for Medicare Part D drug coverage.
• Provide free vaccines for people on Medicare.
• Continue increased premium subsidies for people who buy Affordable Care Act health plans via the new online marketplaces. (Here in NY: “New York State of Health”)
• Here’s a full summary of this bill from Senator Schumer’s office.

We look forward to seeing everyone then! To keep everyone safe during the current COVID-19 omichron BA5 outbreak, please wear a face mask.

Here are some social media toolkits to use this Saturday morning (July 30), to help create some “trending buzz”:

• New York focus: All 3 programs, Medicaid only (from Medicaid Matters NY)
• National focus: Medicare & Medicaid, Medicaid only (both from Health Care for America Now)
• Medicare focus (from Physicians for a National Health Program)

Finally, late yesterday afternoon, Senator Schumer’s office announced agreement with Senator Machin and other Senate Majority members to add provisions to this bill related to tax reforms and climate change. All together, this combined new bill is known as the “Inflation Reduction Act.” We salute and thank Senator Schumer for his tenacious leadership in crafting this historic bill with his colleagues!

Good news! The US Senate is finally poised to move forward with its own legislative response to the Build Back Better bill passed by the House last fall. It will be much smaller in scope, and focus on key health care issues. The bill does not yet have a name or bill number.

The following provisions have been agreed upon so far:

• Empowering the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices with Big Pharma.
• Limiting how much drug corporations can raise drug prices each year to the general rate of inflation. (Typically, they raise their prices much more.)
• Capping out-of-pocket costs for Rx drugs for people on Medicare at $2,000 per year.
• Limiting how much Rx drug coverage goes up each year for people on Medicare.
• Free vaccines for people on Medicare.
• Keeping health insurance more affordable for people who buy their own coverage via Affordable Care Act (ACA) online marketplaces.

Many Senate Majority members and advocates are also pushing to add-in provisions to:

• Cap monthly co-pays for insulin to $35 per month per prescription
• Provide affordable health insurance to low-income people in states that have not yet expanded Medicaid to more low-income people and families under the ACA. (New York is not one of these states – we expanded our Medicaid program nearly a decade ago.)
• Expand Medicaid and the Child Health Insurance Program in various ways to help improve the health and well-being of new mothers and their babies, children, and adolescents.
• Free vaccines for all low-income people and families on public insurance programs.

Help is needed to get the insulin provisions included. Here’s what you can do:

• Organizations can sign-on to a letter to Senators that is being circulated by Patients for Affordable Drugs, AARP, and allies.
• Individuals can endorse and online petition that is being circulated by T1 International (a group of diabetes activists) and allies.

The final decisions about what ends up in a final package will come down to how much money is available overall, and the individual cost of this and that individual provision. What doesn’t make it in will remain to be pushed for later this fall after the elections as part of a federal budget deal, or next year by a new Congress. In either scenario, we will have our work cut out for us.

Both our US Senators from New York (Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand) support all these ideas, as do many members of our state’s congressional delegation (all Democrats.)  The Senate is expected to vote on its bill during the first week of August, and the House will vote on it very soon thereafter. President Biden is then expected to quickly sign it.  

All that noted, we can take nothing for granted.  We urge you to contact both Senators Schumer and Gillibrand and your own member of Congress to urge that they move ahead to get this bill done before their August recess, since it’s now been well over a year that lawmakers have been working on it.

We want to acknowledge and thank all our partners and allies in Health Care for America Now’s New York State Network that we coordinate, for all our hard work together over many months to get us to this point. We couldn’t have done it without all of you. People power DOES matter.

While this final bill will not do everything we all want and need it to do to help everyday people in a whole lot of ways, it will nonetheless be historic in finally successfully taking on Big Pharma’s voracious profiteering and unconscionable price-gouging over many years.

Finally, all the ideas mentioned above are all VERY popular. There is no reason for any lawmaker or candidate for office to hesitate to embrace them. They are winning issues with voters across the political spectrum. We urge you to push for them during the coming election season.