(The Center Square) – This past weekend marked the third anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by former President Joe Biden in 2022.

While the law was promoted as a way to lower prescription drug costs for seniors, insurers and policy analysts say it is driving up prices.

CVS Health Corporation CFO Thomas Cowhey told investors that both traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage beneficiaries would see “much, much higher prices for that Part D benefit.”

Critics say the law adds billions of dollars in new costs for Medicare Advantage plans while limiting their ability to control expenses. Some benefits have become what analysts call “Ghost Benefits.” These are taxpayer-funded supplemental perks that look good on paper but are underused.

A 2024 JAMA Network Open study found that of the $86 billion in annual taxpayer-funded supplemental Medicare Advantage benefits, only $3.9 billion went toward dental, vision and hearing coverage.

Analysts say the IRA’s attempt to push prescription drug costs onto insurers isn’t working.

Notably, Dr. Tomas Phillipson told Fox Business News that premiums were “skyrocketing” due to the Inflation Reduction Act.

MarketWatch’s Brett Arends wrote last year that “The latest price surges follow the passage in 2022 of the Inflation Reduction Act, which capped drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries and transferred costs to the insurance companies. The insurers […] are inevitably trying to recoup some of those costs through higher premiums.”

The Better Medicare Alliance reported that from 2024 to 2025, the average out-of-pocket maximum in Medicare Advantage increased by 8%. Vision, hearing and dental benefits remain mostly the same. However, plans offering meals, nutrition services, transportation and over-the-counter benefits will decrease, according to its analysis. The group also projected that 31 states will see fewer individual plan options next year.

One problem is that the law also shifted catastrophic drug costs to insurers and imposed a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap without offsetting subsidies. Critics say this has contributed to federal bailouts for plans, including $7 billion last year to prevent premium hikes in an election year and a $25 billion rate increase this year.

The Paragon Health Institute says the law has led to “a significant increase in the subsidies that taxpayers pay to insurance companies” while leaving seniors with “fewer coverage options.”

“The goal of the IRA was to shift costs away from the Medicare program and its beneficiaries onto Part D plans,” the Paragon Health Institute’s analysis said. “But the result has been a significant increase in the subsidies that taxpayers pay to insurance companies. Even with the temporary reprieve from higher drug premiums, this policy has left seniors with fewer coverage options. The old adage about free lunches holds true: shifting costs elsewhere does not eliminate them – and in this case, it increased them.”

(The Center Square) – Erin, once a Category 5 hurricane over the weekend that more than doubled wind speed to nearly 160 mph, on Monday morning remained on a path to miss landfall of the United States though not without forcing evacuations in North Carolina.

At 8 a.m., the Category 4 hurricane was just east of the southeastern Bahamas, the National Weather Center said, about 115 miles north-northeast of the Grand Turk Islands, and about 890 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras. Erin was moving northwest at 13 mph, forecast to be going north by Wednesday morning while parallel to the Florida panhandle.

Erin had 75 mph maximum winds Friday at 11 a.m., a Category 1, and 24 hours later was near 160 mph and Category 5. It has since gone to a Category 3 before gaining more intensity.

On the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, Category 1 is 74-95 mph, Category 2 is 96-110, Category 3 is major and 111-129 mph, Category 4 is 130-156 mph, and Category 5 is greater than 157 mph. While the most-often characterization of Atlantic basin cyclones, the scale is without context on storm surge – a key factor in damage at landfall.

Dare County on Sunday declared an emergency with evacuations ordered for Hatteras Island and the Outer Banks. N.C. 12, the famed 148-mile roadway linking peninsulas and islands of the Outer Banks, is likely to go under water and parts could wash away – as often happens with hurricanes.

NC12 begins at U.S. 70 at the community of Sea Level and runs to a point just north of Corolla and south of the Currituck Banks North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve. Two ferries, Hatteras Island to Ocracoke Island and Cedar Island to Ocracoke Island, are part of the route.

Nearly all of North Carolina’s 301-mile coastline is within the outer wind field projection from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center. The greatest speed, however, is 20 mph.

Erin’s rapid intensity is among the greatest on record, and particularly so for prior to Sept. 1. Hurricane force winds (74 mph) extend 60 miles from its center.

By midnight Thursday into Friday, the storm is expected to be past a point parallel to the Virginia-North Carolina border and gaining speed away from the coast.

The storm’s miss of the state is particularly welcome in light of Hurricane Helene. Recovery from that storm is in its 47th week. Helene killed 107 in the state, 236 across seven states in the South, and caused an estimated $60 billion in damage to North Carolina.

(The Center Square) — A federal judge in Miami imposed a temporary restraining order on Thursday on construction of the migrant detention facility dubbed by Florida officials as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, a President Barack Obama appointee, issued the restraining order, which stops any construction at the site, but allows it to continue to accept migrants.

The reasoning was possible environmental damage from the site, which is built on the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport.

Florida Gov. DeSantis said on X that “Operations at Alligator Alcatraz are ongoing and deportations are continuing.”

He also said on Aug. 1 that 600 migrants have been processed through the facility, which has drawn protests from human rights groups and Democrats concerned over rights violations and poor treatment of detainees at the facility. 

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is named in the lawsuit filed by two environmental groups, the Friends of the Everglades and the Center For Biological Diversity, along with the Miccosukee Tribe. The lawsuit says the facility is in violation of National Environmental Protection Act and the Administrative Procedure Act because no environmental impact statement was sought for the facility.

“The hasty transformation of the site into a mass detention facility, which includes the installation of housing units, construction of sanitation and food services systems, industrial high-intensity lighting infrastructure, diesel power generators, substantial fill material altering the natural terrain, and provision of transportation logistics (including apparent planned use of the runway to receive and deport detainees) poses clear environmental impacts,” the complaint reads. 

The 30-square mile airport owned by Miami-Dade County is located roughly 60 miles east of Miami near the Everglades National Park. Its 10,000-foot-long asphalt runway was used for military training exercises and was intended to be part of Miami’s new airport before a public outcry halted construction in 1970.