House Democratic Leader and Congressmember Hakeem Jeffries held his annual senior picnic at Canarsie Park in Brooklyn on Tuesday, Aug. 29, with hundreds of seniors joining him for food, fun, music, games, and entertainment.
Jeffries took the opportunity to address seniors about ongoing negotiations at the federal level with Medicare about drug prices, which was recently announced by President Joe Biden. Previously, the federal government wasn’t able to negotiate lower drug prices for medications. That changed once the Inflation Reduction Act passed.
The White House recently released the first 10 drugs selected for Medicare Price Negotiation by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
“First thing that the Inflation Reduction Act did was to take the cost of insulin for everybody who’s on Medicare, which, as you know, could cost thousands of dollars a year and, in fact, did up until January 1st of this year. But because of the Inflation Reduction Act, we have now reduced the cost of insulin to $35 a month,” said a White House official in a statement. “And we’re just getting started.”
Jeffries said that pharmaceutical companies were profiting from the struggle to afford life-saving medications for far too long. He said that he and House electeds have also been working hard to defend Social Security from “extreme MAGA Republican attacks.”
“We’re going to continue in Washington to fight hard on your behalf to make sure that we can put people over politics, and, in particular, fight for lower costs and fight for an economy that makes sense for everybody, fight for freedom, defend our democracy, and certainly make sure that no one takes away your Social Security or your Medicare,” said Jeffries in a statement. “Not now, not ever.”
The Affordable Care Act was also protected by the Inflation Reduction Act in the “fight for lower costs for American families,” according to the White house.
Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about politics for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.