MD Healthcare for All calls for bi-partisan support of Inflation Reduction Act

MARYLAND – With the general election candidates for Maryland coming into view, bi-partisan healthcare advocates are calling for all the candidates to support the Inflation Reduction Act at the federal level, as it is set to expire in 2025.

MD Healthcare For All President Vinny DeMarco tells WMDT that Marylanders saw savings on their health insurance through the Medicaid expansion, as well as a temporary expansion of subsidies for ACA private insurance.

DeMarco tells WMDT that despite voting against the measure he is calling on Rep. Andy Harris to support the measure come November, as well as the delegation to expand the reach of the inflation reduction act to non-Medicaid recipients as President Biden has claimed he wanted to do if re-elected.

“We want every candidate for U.S. House and U.S. Senate, Maryland, to endorse the Inflation Reduction Act by July 15th. Then we will let the people of Maryland know all Marylanders benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act. And we want to make sure that all members of our congressional delegation support it,” DeMarco said.

The IRA for the first time authorizes Medicare to negotiate with the big drug corporations to keep down the cost of high-cost prescriptions, caps what people on Medicare have to pay for insulin to no more than $35 per month, and as of January 1, 2025, puts a limit of $2000 per year on what people on Medicare will have to pay in out of pocket costs for prescription drugs.

“These changes together will save tens of millions of Americans including many in Maryland from the physical and financial pain of expensive drugs, and will save the United States Treasury hundreds of billions of dollars a year,” the letter reads. “Further, the IRA built on the progress of the Affordable Care Act by keeping in place until 2025 additional federal health care subsidies which have allowed millions more Americans, including tens of thousands here in Maryland, to be able to afford health care coverage. We must keep these critical new benefits in place.”

DeMarco tells WMDT that by solidifying support, it can help make a federal prescription drug affordability board like the kind currently scaling up in Maryland a real possibility on the national level.

Candidates have until July 15th to respond.