Medicare Enrollees May Still Face Affordability Issues After Part D Benefit Redesign
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Jan 26, 2023
About 800,000 Medicare beneficiaries in 2024 and 200,000 in 2025 could see their out-of-pocket (OOP) medication costs exceed 10% of their annual income, even with the Part D drug benefit reforms passed via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), according to an Avalere analysis.
The IRA will establish a beneficiary OOP cap at the catastrophic threshold, which is estimated to be $3,233 in 2024. Avalere estimated that 1.5 million Part D enrollees without low-income subsidies (LIS) are projected to reach OOP drug spending levels above the catastrophic threshold in 2024. Among them, about 18% of beneficiaries will reach the catastrophic phase in the first three months. Greater shares of beneficiaries who are younger than 65 years old or who are Hispanic will face affordability challenges compared to the average non-LIS enrollees. The analysis also suggested that non-LIS enrollees taking asthma drugs, blood thinners, immunology therapies, cancer treatments and HIV drugs are more likely to reach the OOP cap in 2024. Read more
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