Montana Republicans want to stop Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices

The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, backed by Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and opposed by the rest of Montana’s congressional delegation, authorized the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare Part D beneficiaries and capped their out-of-pocket costs for insulin and prescription drugs. Even after the first round of negotiations yielded reductions of up to 79% in the prices of some medications, congressional Republicans and Montana GOP candidates are pushing to repeal the law.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced in August that it had reached agreements with pharmaceutical companies to lower the prices of 10 commonly used medications available through the Medicare prescription drug program to between 38% and 79% below list prices starting in 2026. This would mean savings of about $1.5 billion for Americans enrolled in the program and of $6 billion for the government. Under the law, lower prices for more drugs will be negotiated in future years.

In a press release, Tester noted that almost 25,000 Montanans are expected to benefit from the first round of negotiations. “Montanans shouldn’t have to struggle to fill their lifesaving prescription medications because Big Pharma is jacking up prices, and today’s announcement is a big win for Montanans across our state,” he said. “That’s why I took the large pharmaceutical companies head-on to pass a commonsense law that will now officially lower the cost of 10 of the most common prescription drugs that Montanans rely on that treat heart disease, cancer, diabetes, blood clots, and more. I’ll continue working to lower costs and put more money back in the pockets of hardworking families.”

Republicans in Congress, however, hope to put a stop to the process entirely, Axios reported on Sept. 17, by repealing Medicare’s authorization to negotiate prices should they win full control of Congress and the White House in November. “I would try to remove that and replace it, but I can’t tell you the exact, you know, what it would be yet,” Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, told the outlet.

A spokesperson for Republican Sen. Steve Daines told the Montana Independent: “Given that the IRA caused record inflation and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris used it to raid Medicare and crush groundbreaking medical innovation in order to pay for their electric vehicle tax credits, Senator Daines would absolutely be open to repealing it. It is one of the worst bills Congress has ever passed and is destroying our Montana way of life.”

Inflation dropped in September to 2.7%, its lowest level since December 2020. Fact-checkers have debunked the false GOP claim that the law took money from Medicare to pay for infrastructure investments. While it will save the Medicare program more than $230 billion over a decade by lowering costs, those savings will not harm beneficiaries in any way.

Both of Montana’s U.S. representatives, Republicans Ryan Zinke and Matt Rosendale, are currently co-sponsors of a bill that would completely repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, including the provisions that lower drug costs. 

Zinke has received more than $46,000 in campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical and health products industry since the start of 2023, according to OpenSecrets data. His office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

His Democratic opponent, attorney Monica Tranel, favors “strengthening the ability of Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate drug prices and guaranteeing that hundreds of thousands of Montanans—and millions of Americans—who rely on these programs get the coverage they are entitled to and the protections they deserve,” according to her campaign website.

Rosendale is not seeking reelection. 

A spokesperson for his likely successor, Republican Montana State Auditor Troy Downing, did not say whether he would back repeal but told the Montana Independent in an email: “We need to address the skyrocketting costs of Rx drugs while making sure we are still innovating and finding new and better treatments and cures. We need to bring everyone to the table to find the best way to get prices lowered for necessary drugs while also ensuring increased investments in the research and development of the next generation of prescription drugs.”

The campaign for Tester’s Republican opponent, former business executive Tim Sheehy, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Sheehy has called for “pure privatization” of health care, which would presumably entail the complete deregulation of insurers and an end to federal health insurance programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.