Many Medicare Cancer Patients Now Have Much Lower Out

Former President Joe Biden signed The Inflation Reduction Act in the State Dining Room of the White House August 16, 2022, in Washington, DC. The $737 billion bill focuses on climate change, lower healthcare costs and creating clean energy jobs.(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Getty Images

Tens of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries who are cancer patients have substantially lower out-of-pocket costs for their prescription drugs, thanks to a key provision included in the Inflation Reduction Act.

When people think about the IRA’s drug pricing measures, they’re more likely to be familiar with the Medicare price negotiation aspect than the redesign of Medicare’s outpatient drug benefit. The former entails Medicare’s ability to negotiate prices of a select number of drugs. But the pric