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President Donald Trump has wasted little time starting to undo one of his predecessor’s worst policies − the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order halting the IRA’s boondoggle green-energy grants.That action − while sorely needed − only begins to curtail the damage the IRA inflicted. Protecting Americans from its worst effects will require congressional action as well. And on that front, there is no better place to start than the EPIC Act − a one-page bill that eliminates an IRA policy currently discouraging the creation of new life-saving medicines.By including the EPIC Act language in the budget reconciliation legislation Congress will soon take up, lawmakers can get out of the way of American innovators ready to bring forth the next generation of medical breakthroughs.Although sold to the American people as a necessary investment in the nation’s future, the IRA was nothing of the sort. On the contrary, the bill’s chief accomplishment was to provide massive tax breaks and subsidies to top Democratic interest groups, including $780 billion to the clean-energy industry by 2031.How IRA stifles medical innovationSadly, corporate welfare is just one of the IRA’s many sins.Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.The law also raised healthcare costs for seniors enrolled in the Medicare Part D drug benefit. In response to several changes to that program implemented under the IRA, insurers had to hike premiums dramatically.Rather than addressing these premium-inflating provisions, Biden used huge sums of borrowed money to hide the problem with his summer 2024 “premium stabilization” program.This unilateral policy effectively paid insurers billions of dollars to shield patients from the massive increases that Biden’s policy created.What this so-called demonstration program really demonstrated is how fearful Biden was of an electoral backlash − one that took Democrats down anyway. And of course continuing the “stabilization” will cost billions more every year.A marquee feature of the IRA was the new power it gave Medicare bureaucrats to demand lower prices from drug makers on an expanding list of medications the program covers. That’s a deterrent to medical innovation in its own right.Price controls discourage needed pharmaceutical researchPrice controls stifle innovation by reducing the potential return on investment. But the way the IRA structured price control authority made the cure worse than the disease – or, in this case, it made it nearly impossible to develop a cure for the disease.The IRA arbitrarily divided drugs into two classes. So-called small molecule drugs, which usually come in pill form, receive nine years of exemption from price controls following FDA approval. By contrast, “biologics” — which are typically injected or infused under medical supervision — receive 13 years of exemption.This disparate treatment is already having a disastrous effect on prescription drug research. It creates a huge disincentive to the pursuit of small molecule drug development.The “pill penalty” is expected to reduce the number of new medicines in this category by 79 over the next two decades, according to economists at the University of Chicago. This means there will be far fewer new treatments for conditions like cancer and heart disease. That’s a tough pill to swallow since the same analysis found that the pill penalty will cost patients 116 million life years during that period.That’s an outcome that no American should want, but particularly not patients here in Tennessee. Our state faces some daunting health challenges, including one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the nation and some of the highest rates of conditions like diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.Sen. Hagerty should press Congress to pass EPIC ActSimply put, Tennesseans are more likely to die from a chronic disease than patients in almost anywhere in the country. So a slowdown in medical innovation will hit residents of the Volunteer Stat …
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