be a right, not a privilege in this country. so president biden has an opportunity to tout what is a big win for the white house. something he s been working on for a very long time and that is a plan to lower drug costs for senior citizens by allowing medicare to negotiate prices. this is the situation though that will not take effect until january of 2026. arguably, as big a win as this is for the president, the star of the show was a 71-year-old from north carolina, steven hatfield, who came up to say that he s one of those americans. he has to work multiple jobs just to make sure he can pay the $16,000 a month that he needs for drugs to stay alive. he s already seen a reduction in his cost for insulin because he has type ii diabetes, but again, there are 65 million people this plan will impact and as the vice president put it at the beginning, shouldn t have to
additional drugs alone will help more than 9 million americans. and by september 2024, hhs, health and human services, is going to publish the prices that have been negotiated. in january of 2026, the new prices will go into effect. we re not stopping there. next year, medicare will select more drugs for negotiation so more americans can get more savings on life saving medications than they deserve, but guess what. big pharma doesn t want this to happen as you might expect. last year, the industry spent $400 million in lobbying fees to try to stop the inflation reduction act and block the ability of the federal government to lower drug prices. when they failed, they went to federal court to sue the government. and attempt to maintain their exorbitant prices. they re hoping the courts will do what democrats in congress wouldn t do.
so about a year from now, we ll get a sense of what the new prices will be for those ten drugs on your screen that you see there. these are very commonly known drugs that help with blood thinners, medication that s for diabetes, for some blood cancer type of drugs. really essential things particularly for seniors. and that s what we re talking about here. when we look at the calendar of these drug companies have about 30 days to really agree to this or they will face some very stiff tax penalties and then negotiations will continue for about a year. we ll know the prices september of 2024 but those prices won t take effect until january of 2026. so there are some lawsuits that have already been announced and in the works. the white house says though they re not very concerned about that because they do believe that this is well established law that they re able to do this. that they just really needed the political capital to be able to get this across the finish line.