Far too often, when bad government policy fails to deliver, the first reflex in Washington is to throw more money at the problem. This reflex has been destroying American health care for years.
This pattern is seen clearly in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), as millions of Americans learn their insurance costs will skyrocket in 2026. Washington has long thrown good money after bad—and the result has been ever-rising costs for patients and taxpayers. This pattern can also be seen in Medicare Part D. The stand-alone Part D market is now in active collapse. Plan participation is plummeting. Options are shrinking. And costs are soaring despite skyrocketing subsidies from taxpayers.
The Biden administration’s “solution” for Part D, like its ACA “solution,” was to shovel more money into the program. The Trump administration has a chance to correct this error and break the cycle.
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 succeeded in decreasing the out-of-pocket costs for Part D enrollees—but there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Costs went up for insurers, so plans had to increase premiums or leave the market. The premiums are heavily subsidized, so the higher the premium, the higher the cost to taxpayers. The Biden administration wanted to avoid premium hikes before the 2024 election, so it created a three-year program that essentially gave insurers $5 billion to not raise Part D premiums.
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