Matt Gaetz gives Medicare administrator hard deadline to provide documents about price increases

Florida Representative Matt Gaetz has given the head of Medicare and Medicaid services a hard deadline to hand over documents related to Medicare Part D price increases despite the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act.

"First, Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass the flawed Inflation Reduction Act. Next the cost of Medicare Part D increased by 21 percent and the bid rates are reported to spike another 180 percent in 2025. Now, the Biden-Harris administration is hiding critical data from senior citizens to cover up their failed policies in an election year," said Gaetz on X.

"Today, I sent a letter to Administrator (Chiquita) Brooks-LaSure demanding answers on the unprecedented decision to withhold Medicare Part D preliminary premium information during the 2025 season," he added.

Concretely, the letter says that seniors rely on preliminary premium information on Medicare Part D to "educate themselves about which plans to choose during open enrollment." He said that this year the body didn't do so, in fact including in a press release a FAQ with a note saying "why isn't CMS releasing preliminary premium information like CMS usually does in July?"

"This unprecedented lack of transparency for the 2025 season was justified, poorly, by an announced, and possibly unlawful, 'demonstration program' designed to kick the widely anticipated premium increases caused by the Inflation Reduction Act until after the 2024 election," Gaetz claims.

In this context, he sets October 4 as the deadline for Brooks-LaSure to provide information related to "any estimated preliminary premium information produced by CMS for 2025," as well as communications between the Office of the Administrator and the CMS component responsible for developing the "demonstration program," as well as discussion regarding the decision to "refuse to release preliminary premium information on July 29, 2024."