“As the Fourth Estate, you must stand up for the truth!” a woman urged me earlier this week.
At issue was a cellphone text her elderly mother had received from the office of Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, telling her that the Biden-Harris administration was “raiding” Medicare by some $260 billion to “subsidize electric vehicles, big insurers, health care for illegal immigrants, and more.”
The text message then urged her to donate to Marshall’s campaign.
The woman said her mother found the text message very upsetting at the thought she might lose her Medicare coverage.
Our household received a similar threat in the form of a mailer warning us that the “Biden-Harris Medicare plan hurts all seniors.” One photo depicted an elderly senior with his head in his hands. The other was of two seniors parsing out their pills, as if debating which they could afford to do without.
At the bottom of the mailer is a somewhat incongruous photo of a beaming Sen. Marshall.
The text and mailer are examples of the “dark money” in today’s political world.
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that the First Amendment protects unlimited donations to political campaigns as “free speech,” Americans have been overwhelmed by seamy attack ads from both parties.
The Citizens United decision overturned 100 years of campaign finance law whose purpose was to prevent corruption by limiting the influence of special interest groups. Instead, the ruling has allowed massive increases in political spending, dramatically expanding the outsized political influence of the wealthy.
My caller also contacted Sen. Marshall’s office to question the text message’s allegations.
“At each issue I raised, their reply was only ‘no comment,’” she said. 
So I set to work.
Though I found other ultra-conservatives echoing Sen. Marshall’s claims, I found nothing to substantiate them.
What I did discover is that the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022 allows the government to negotiate directly with drug companies for lower drug prices, similar to what the Department of Defense has done for years for veterans, and in some cases set prescription drug prices for Medicare enrollees.
Estimated savings: $266 billion over 10 years, according to the analysis of the Wharton School of Business.
