Fact check: Inflation Reduction Act will lower cost of health insurance, prescription drugs

Chris Mueller, USA TODAY
·4 min read
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The claim: The Inflation Reduction Act expands free health insurance to people under 65

After more than a year of negotiation, a $740 billion climate and health care bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act became law Aug. 16 with a few strokes of President Joe Biden’s pen.

Biden described the legislation as a “godsend” and “one of the most significant laws in our history.”

The law will do a variety of things, including allowing the government to negotiate the prices of costly prescription drugs and extend subsidies for people buying their own health insurance.

A recent Facebook post that has been shared nearly 700 times claims it does much more than that.

“$0 Health Insurance Is Here!” reads the Aug. 7 post, which has also accumulated more than 1,000 comments. “Congress Approves $700bn package, $0 Health Insurance expanded to Americans under 65.”

But the new law won't, as the post claims, expand free health insurance to a large swath of Americans, experts say. It only extends existing subsidies for people who buy health insurance on the marketplace set up by the Affordable Care Act.

The post also predates the signing of the legislation and offers no proof for its claim. It simply urges users to "see if you qualify now," but doing so only directs users to message the Facebook page, which was just created in May.

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USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the claim for comment.

President Joe Biden gives Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., the pen he used to sign The Inflation Reduction Act.
President Joe Biden gives Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., the pen he used to sign The Inflation Reduction Act.

Law will help with cost of insurance premiums, prescription drugs

There is no evidence the Inflation Reduction Act expands free health insurance to people younger than 65 years old. A summary of the legislation released by the White House lists several measures related to health care, but it doesn't mention free health insurance.

"The post is largely false," Gideon Lukens, director of health research and data analysis for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told USA TODAY. "It implies that the Inflation Reduction Act expanded benefits and made coverage free for everyone under age 65."

The law does include a three-year extension of tax credits that increase the number of people eligible for health insurance with no out-of-pocket costs through the marketplace set up by the Affordable Care Act, Lukens said. But that's not in line with the post's claim about expanded free coverage.

"This impacts only a targeted group who have low incomes and are eligible for the ACA marketplaces, which is a very small fraction of all people under age 65," Lukens said. "Moreover, even this targeted group with zero premium costs will have other cost sharing, so they will not receive totally 'free' health care."

The legislation, though, does take steps to address the cost of health care in other ways.

The U.S. spends significantly more on health care than other wealthy countries, with total spending reaching more than $4 trillion in 2020, or about $12,000 a person, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The law will help 13 million people save an average of $800 a year on health insurance premiums, and 3 million more people will have health insurance than otherwise would without the law, according to the White House summary.

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It also allows Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, which has long been opposed by the pharmaceutical industry. That means between 5 million and 7 million people on Medicare could see the cost of their prescription drugs go down, the White House said.

PolitiFact has also debunked the claim.

Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that the Inflation Reduction Act expanded free health insurance to people under 65. The law doesn't expand coverage for this age group; it extends existing subsidies for people who buy health insurance on the government marketplace. But that only applies to a fraction of Americans younger than 65.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Inflation Reduction Act will lower health insurance costs