Estimated Savings of $5,000 to Each Medicare Beneficiary from Enactment Through 2022 Under the Affordable Care Act

Summary

The Affordable Care Act, enacted in 2010, makes many changes to strengthen Medicare and provide better benefits to seniors, while slowing cost growth. As a result, average Medicare beneficiary savings in traditional Medicare will be approximately $5,000 over the 2010 to 2022 period (see Table 1). Beneficiaries who have high prescription drug spending will save much more – more than $18,000 over the same period.

This issue brief provides estimates of savings to seniors and people living with disabilities enrolled in traditional Medicare from the provisions in the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act favorably affects beneficiary expenditures in four ways. First, premiums for Part B physician and certain other services are expected to increase at a slower rate than would have occurred without the Affordable Care Act, resulting in lower Part B premiums over time. Second, beneficiary copayments and coinsurance under Parts A and B will increase more slowly because the Affordable Care Act slows the rate of growth in payments to hospitals and other providers. Third, closing the Medicare prescription drug coverage gap, often called the "donut hole," will lower costs for beneficiaries who otherwise would have been required to spend thousands of dollars out of their own pockets for their prescription drugs. Finally, the Affordable Care Act provides many preventive services to people with Medicare at no additional cost.

The Affordable Care Act will lower Medicare spending compared to the baseline prior to the law's passage through reductions in extra subsidies paid to Medicare Advantage plans; reductions in the rate of growth in provider payments; efforts to make the Medicare program more efficient, coordinated, and quality-oriented; and reductions in waste, fraud and abuse. These provisions will lead to corresponding savings for beneficiaries through lower copayments and premiums. An expected slower rate of growth in Medicare spending leads to a slower rate of growth in beneficiary out-of-pocket payments, and a slower rate of growth in Part B premiums. In addition, the closing of the donut hole will result in large savings for beneficiaries with high levels of prescription drug spending.

Average savings per Medicare beneficiary in traditional Medicare are estimated to be $160 in 2012, increasing to $812 in 2022 (see Table 1). For a beneficiary with spending in the donut hole, total estimated annual savings increase from $735 in 2012 to $2,599 in 2022.

Methods

The Affordable Care Act requires drug manufacturers to provide a discount for covered brand name Part D drugs sold to beneficiaries in the donut hole (50 percent starting in 2011) and provides subsidies for covered brand name Part D drugs to those beneficiaries rising from 2.5 percent in 2013 to 25 percent in 2020. Finally, the Affordable Care Act provides subsidies for generic drugs purchased in the donut hole beginning at 7 percent in 2011 and rising to 75 percent in 2020. Together, these changes mean that a beneficiary will pay the standard 25 percent coinsurance in a standard plan in 2020 for generic and brand drugs, and the donut hole will be closed.

Endnotes