President Joe Biden visited Las Vegas Wednesday, touting provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act that seek to tackle prescription drug costs for Medicare recipients, while making the case for his budget proposal which would go even further on pharmaceutical pricing attempting to shore up Medicare funding for decades.

"The bottom line," he asked an assembly of healthcare providers and supporters, "is do you have enough to pay for what you need and take care of the exigencies that occur?"

On Tuesday, the White House released data demonstrating how his prescription drug law has saved money for Americans, as well as guidance on Medicare's planned negotiations with pharmaceutical companies over 10 drugs this fall.

The Department of Health and Human Services also released the first list of drugs that manufacturers will be required to pay rebates to Medicare for raising the costs of their drugs faster than the rate of inflation. The list includes anticoagulents, treatments for serious fungal infections, cancer treatments.

"American spends more on prexcriptoin drugs than any advanced nation on Earth," Biden said. "It's not fair. But after decades of trying to take on big pharma, we finally won. Instead of paying whatever they want to charge you, Medicare will be able to negotiate prices."

Biden advocated for his budget, including his plan to solidify funding for Medicare through at least 2032 and possibly into the 2050s, according to modeling by the chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

A 2022 estimate from Medicare’s board of trustees determined the fund would run out of money by 2028 if nothing is done. Biden aims to raise taxes on Americans earning at least $400,000 a year to help keep Medicare solvent over the next few decades.

The president’s budget proposal is a largely ceremonial document that lays out the Biden administration’s vision before negotiations begin with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. 

House Republicans have yet to release a budget proposal of their own, but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Spectrum News in a recent interview that raising taxes on the wealthy to fund Medicare was a non-starter.

On Tuesday, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and other Biden administration officials highlighted aspects of the president’s budget proposal that would lower prescription drug prices, including capping insulin at $35 a month for the privately insured and expanding the federal government’s role in negotiating drug prices on behalf of Medicare and state Medicaid programs.

The Inflation Reduction Act, passed last summer, capped insulin prices at $35 a month for Medicare beneficiaries beginning in January. Biden and his administration have repeatedly pointed out a month’s supply of insulin costs less than $10 to produce, yet prices range as high as $300 a month for diabetics.

“That’s flat-out wrong,” White House chief domestic policy adviser Susan Rice said on a press call. “Congress should finish the job and extend the $35 insulin cap to all Americans. But we know congressional Republicans have a very different plan.”

Last summer, 43 Republican Senators voted against capping insulin at $35 a month in the private market, leaving a bipartisan coalition of 50 Democrats and seven Republicans three votes short of the 60-vote threshold required by Senate rules. Only 12 House Republicans joined Democrats voting for a similar bill in March 2022.

After Biden spoke about the insulin cap in his State of the Union address, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., claimed in a statement that insulin price caps lead to higher insurance premiums.

“It’s time for the President to abandon his socialist price-schemes and work across the aisle to make insulin products more affordable without jeopardizing insulin competition and innovation,” said Rodgers, whose committee’s responsibilities include oversight of public and private health insurance.

An Axios-Ipsos poll in February found 84% of Americans back a $35 per month insulin cap.

Biden has urged pharmaceutical companies to implement the cap themselves for privately insured Americans.

So far two of the country’s three largest producers of insulin — Eli Lilly earlier this month and Novo Nordisk on Tuesday — announced they plan to slash insulin prices within the next year. An HHS report released earlier this year estimated 1.5 million seniors would have saved an average of around $500 over the course of 2020 had the new law been in place.

Ahead of Biden’s remarks Wednesday, officials also highlighted the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act they say are already reducing costs for Medicare recipients, including offering recommended vaccines free of charge.

About 51 million Americans use Medicare for prescriptions, according to an HHS report set to be published Wednesday. Just under 3.4 million people received vaccines through Medicare in 2021 and paid a total of $234 million, or roughly $70 per person, HHS data shows.

“Today they would pay $0,” Becerra said, citing data from the report that concludes more than 270,000 Medicare enrollees that got the shingles vaccine paid $193 or more in 2021. The over 2.7 million patients who received the shingles vaccine, the most sought-after vaccine by Medicare recipients, paid $77 on average.

About 1 in 3 Americans will develop shingles in their lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Las Vegas visit will be the last stop on the president’s West Coast trip this week. On Monday, he announced the sale of nuclear submarines to Australia alongside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in San Diego. He then traveled to Monterey Park, Calif., Tuesday to announce new executive action on background checks for gun purchases and other gun violence reduction measures.