Pelosi's Drug Pricing Plan Is Weak And Likely To Get Weaker Before It Ever Passes... If It Ever Passes

Pelosi's long-awaited drug-pricing plan was finally made public yesterday. Key non-policy top-lines:

• Republicans immediately started calling it "socialist" before reading it
• Progressives have noted that it's quite a bit less than what was promised
• Moscow Mitch butt-boy John Thune (R-ND) said it will be dead on arrival if it passes the House this fall.

The fairly weak plan-- albeit just as hated by the GOP and Big Pharma as a real plan would be-- gives Medicare the job of negotiating prices on 25 (instead of 250) commonly used drugs. By targeting only the most commonly used drugs, Pelosi-- who should be fired by San Francisco voters in 2020-- is purposely leaving people who take less common drugs, out to dry, especially since those are the drugs that are usually prohibitively expensive. (McConnell said if Pelosi's plan passes the House he will refuse to allow a vote on it in the Senate. "Socialist price controls," he lisped, "will do a lot of left-wing damage to the healthcare system. And of course we’re not going to be calling up a bill like that.")

The corrupt conservative New Dems, who are in part financed by the pharmaceutical companies, are siding with Trump to water down all proposals as much as possible. That would have been a good reason to strat the process with a really strong proposal, like Lloyd Doggett's, rather than a sad little puny plan like Pelosi's. If if Republicans and their New Dem allies watered down Doggett's plan, it would probably still be better than the pablum Pelosi came up with. Pelosi put herself in a position where any compromises at all will result in a completely meaningless bill that does virtually nothing, the goal of the Republicans and Big PhRMA.

The main thrust of the plan will allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices on as many as 250 of the most expensive drugs, including insulin, per year and apply those discounts to private health plans across the U.S, according to a legislative summary distributed to lawmakers.

The plan will also establish an international pricing index that is supposed to bring drug prices in line with what other nations pay and penalize pharmaceuticals companies that refuse to negotiate with the government or fail to reach any drug pricing agreement. The penalty will start at 65% of the gross sales of the drug in question and increase by 10% each quarter the manufacturer doesn’t reach an agreement, according to the summary.

Pelosi’s proposal also will:

• penalize pharmaceutical companies that raise the price of their drugs faster than inflation
• create an out-of-pocket maximum of $2,000 for Medicare beneficiaries
• and reinvest savings from negotiated prices on finding new treatments at NIH.

Bernie's platform is what Congress should be looking at, rather than Pelosi's pre-compromised plan. Bernie:

The giant pharmaceutical and health insurance lobbies have spent billions of dollars over the past decades to ensure that their profits come before the health of the American people. We must defeat them, together. That means:

• Joining every other major country on Earth and guaranteeing health care to all people as a right, not a privilege, through a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program.

And to lower the prices of prescription drugs now, we need to:

• Allow Medicare to negotiate with the big drug companies to lower prescription drug prices with the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Act.
• Allow patients, pharmacists, and wholesalers to buy low-cost prescription drugs from Canada and other industrialized countries with the Affordable and Safe Prescription Drug Importation Act.
• Cut prescription drug prices in half, with the Prescription Drug Price Relief Act, by pegging prices to the median drug price in five major countries: Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan.

Why should Democrats in Congress compromise with the pharmaceutical industry, the way Pelosi is doing? On Wednesday, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley made a case for giving them some rough treatment. "Purdue Pharma had a big plan," he wrote. Hook people on opioids like OxyContin. Lean on groups like the World Health Organization to look the other way. And then turn their backs on the victims when people became addicted and started dying. That's the opioid crisis in America and it's a signal that health care in our country is in grave danger." It's a multi-pronged assault:

• Companies like Purdue get people hooked on their drugs, then try to weasel out of responsibility for a crisis they helped cause.
• Other drug companies develop life-saving medications, but then jack up the prices and hold patients hostage to their profits.
• They bankroll Republican campaigns, funding people who promise to cut regulations on health care and protect Big Pharma.
• Industry executives, lobbyists, and insiders are appointed to major positions of power, who spend their days undermining our health care system.

"Americans can't afford for Big Pharma to call the shots anymore. I've proposed solutions like barring them from gouging Americans with prices far higher than they charge in other countries, and making them pay for an opioid treatment surge."

He then called on Americans to "help hold Big Pharma accountable for what they've done" and suggests electing Democrats in 2020 is how we do that. I understand where he's coming from, but electing Democrats who kowtow to Big Pharma and Wall Street doesn't sound like a very good idea to me. In his own state, one of the worst corporate whores in Congress, Blue Dog Kurt Schrader, is being challenged by Milwaukie mayor Mark Gamba. "The Pharmaceutical industry in America has been allowed prey on Americans for decades now," Gamba told us this morning. "This latest revelation regarding opioids, and the industry’s active participation in addicting Americans in their moment of suffering is in keeping with their long standing attitude of wringing as much profit out of people during their time of illness as possible. They do so, often, regardless of the actual efficacy or detrimental side effects involved. They also have no qualms about jacking up prices to bankruptcy inducing levels for critical life saving drugs. As Americans we pay dramatically higher prices for the same drug that people in other countries are using. Just google 'insulin price comparisons worldwide' if you want hard numbers. This means that often Americans go without their life saving drugs, and they die. When I’m elected, one of my top priorities will be to pass H.R. 1384 the House version of the Medicare for All act so that prescription drug prices are negotiated, just like they are in most of the rest of the world. It is high time that our entire medical system be focused on providing the best care possible, for all the people, at a reduced cost."

The thermometer above is for 2020 congressional candidates-- like Mark Gamba-- who are running Medicare-For-All-powered election campaigns, campaigns that aren't just passively in support of single payer but are actively talking with voters about it. Please click on it and give what you can.