A new study suggests that one of the most consequential consumer provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act is already changing how Americans on Medicare get their medications.
According to Endpoints News, a study published Thursday in JAMA Health Forum found that medication usage rose significantly shortly after Medicare's annual out-of-pocket cost cap took effect in January 2025. The increase was particularly notable for the most expensive drugs — the ones that historically left patients facing the steepest bills at the pharmacy counter.
The out-of-pocket cap is a feature of the Inflation Reduction Act, the sweeping law that included measures aimed at lowering prescription drug costs for people on Medicare. By limiting how much a patient has to pay out of pocket each year, the cap was designed to remove a major financial barrier that can lead people to delay or abandon their prescriptions.
The study's central finding is that the timing lines up: as soon as the cap kicked in, access to costly drugs went up. That pattern points to cost — not medical need — as a key reason some patients had previously gone without.
Why it matters: prescription affordability is one of the most direct ways health policy touches everyday life, and this study offers early real-world evidence that capping out-of-pocket costs can help patients actually fill the expensive prescriptions their doctors order.