Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy couldn’t cough up answers when pressed about the Trump administration’s actions that would increase drug prices for seniors, leaving one senator baffled.
While testifying before the Senate Finance Committee Thursday, Kennedy was asked by Senator Catherine Cortez Masto about his support of the carve-outs for high-cost cancer drugs from Medicare price-reduction negotiations in Trump’s behemoth budget bill.
“So my question to you, Mr. Secretary, is how do you justify claiming to take on Big Pharma while supporting a bill that shields drugs, like Keytruda and other cancer drugs, from Medicare negotiation, costing seniors and taxpayers billions and risking the lives of cancer patients who cannot afford the necessary medication?”
Kennedy replied that the planned price-reduction negotiations laid out in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act were “very well-intentioned, but they were poorly structured,” and added that previous negotiations had raised Medicare prices.
Cortez Masto interjected that Kennedy’s claims didn’t match the findings of the Congressional Budget Office. Trump and other Republicans have spent months trying to discredit the CBO’s findings as they warn of the effects of the president’s calamitous budget bill. “The CBO doesn’t say that, it’s just the opposite. So you’re saying that the CBO and independent agencies that validate the costs are wrong?”
Kennedy claimed that the data was from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, or CMS.
The Nevada Democrat did not relent, and when pressed on why those drugs had been exempted by Trump’s legislation, Kennedy said he was “not sure” of that provision.
“Your agency is responsible for that negotiation, and you don’t know about it?” Cortez Masto asked incredulously.
Cortez Masto tried to get specific, asking Kennedy if he knew how much people enrolled in Medicare Part D and Part B were expected to pay for prescription drug costs next year.
Each question elicited a long pause from Kennedy. He stammered answers that included, “I think that that is in debate right now” and even, “I don’t know.”
Cortez Masto explained that prices were expected to increase for Part D enrollees by $15, up to $50 a month. Part B enrollees could expect price increases of 11.6 percent, or $21.50 more each month. Medicare premiums were expected to have the largest single-year price increase in decades because the Trump administration had cut the federal subsidy that has been keeping costs down, she said.
Cortez Masto then attempted to simplify her question even further. “My question to you is, what are you doing to keep costs down for seniors?” Cortez Masto pressed. Kennedy wilted.
“I mean, I’m already doing—I’m already keeping costs down,” he said.
“What are you doing to keep costs down for seniors, knowing that these costs are going to be increasing?” she asked again.
Kennedy touted a Program Integrity Bill, which CMS said could lower premiums by 5 percent (the CBO contends it’s closer to 0.6 percent). “And does that impact seniors?” Cortez Masto pressed again.
“Excuse me?” Kennedy said.
“Does that impact seniors?” she said.“Does that impact seniors? What you just talked about, you’re lowering costs, does that impact seniors?
“Does it impact … ?” Kennedy said, appearing confused even though he’d heard the same question repeated several times. “I didn’t hear your question,” he pouted.
While the senators’ microphones cut out at different moments during Kennedy’s hearing Thursday, that hadn’t been the case during Cortez Masto’s questioning. It seems clear that Kennedy heard—he just didn’t have anything smart to say.
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