Your drug plan’s premium may have been on a leash for the past few years. Washington just let go of the leash.
Quick vocabulary. Part D is the piece of Medicare that covers prescription drugs. The premium is what you pay each month for the plan.
Now the story, told this week in a Journal editorial headlined “Trump Fixes a Biden Medicare Trick.” The government is ending a subsidy paid to Part D insurers — a test program that quietly held premiums down, so the sticker never showed the real price.
How much was hidden? In the editorial’s example, a premium that should have read $179.45 showed up as $64.28. The gap did not disappear. It just moved to the taxpayer’s side of the table.
Where did the spike come from in the first place? The editorial traces it to the Inflation Reduction Act’s drug price-control design, which pushed the program’s baseline cost up by roughly $700 billion through 2035. Big program, big plumbing, big number.
The reassuring small print
Before anyone panics at the mailbox, the same editorial carries real reassurance.
About half of seniors are in Medicare Advantage plans — the all-in-one private version of Medicare — and are not affected by this at all. Another 22% are low-income and subsidized. Only about 10% of enrollees face increases of more than $10 a month.
And the number that matters most: 90% of seniors have access to a plan under $10 a month.
Read that again. The cheap plan exists for nine people out of ten. It simply does not mail itself to your house. You have to go get it.
This is the pattern with almost every Medicare scare headline. The average sounds alarming, the range is wide, and your own situation is one specific number no headline can see. The only way to learn your number is to look it up. Fortunately, there is an annual appointment for exactly that.
What to actually do
One: circle the window. Medicare open enrollment runs October 15 to December 7. That is the one stretch of the year when switching Part D plans is as easy as picking one. Put it on the calendar now, in ink.
Two: make the drug list. Every prescription, exact name and dose. A plan comparison is only as good as the list you feed it. The right plan for your neighbor’s medicine cabinet can be the wrong one for yours.
Three: compare total cost, not the premium. A $10 premium with the wrong drug coverage can cost more than a $40 premium with the right coverage. Add the premium and the year’s drug costs together before judging any plan.
Four: do not renew by default. Letting last year’s plan roll over is a decision — usually the most expensive one available. This year especially, with the mask coming off premiums, the plan you loved at the old subsidized price deserves a fresh interview.
We run this comparison for clients every fall. It takes about an hour. Some years it saves nothing. Some years it saves hundreds of dollars a month. The hour costs the same either way.
The expensive plan renews by itself. The cheap plan has to be found. That difference is the whole game.