Harris plan to cap prescription drug costs is likely to increase premiums

Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign plan to cap the costs of prescription drugs has some healthcare analysts warning that it would cause an increase in health insurance premiums, with the only debate being how much.

Last week, Harris released a series of economic proposals aimed at lowering prices for food, housing, and healthcare in an attempt to distance herself from the economic legacy of President Joe Biden.

Among those proposals is a plan to set caps on the amount paid for households for drugs. The policy would expand provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats passed in 2022, meant to lower prescription drug costs for beneficiaries of Medicare, the government healthcare program for people who are over 65 or who have certain disabilities.

One provision of the Inflation Reduction Act caps spending on insulin to $35 per month cap for Medicare beneficiaries. Harris is now calling for that cap to be imposed on all healthcare plans. Biden has alluded to the proposition of expanding the insulin price cap for several weeks and announced it publicly as a goal of his last few months in office.