Republicans Want You To Die Quickly-- Wouldn't It Be Nice If The Democratic Party United Firmly Behind An Alternative?

Yesterday, AOC sent her followers a note: Just months ago, the official campaign arm of House Democrats (the DCCC) announced that they would blacklist anyone who worked on a primary challenger’s campaign. That’s made it much harder for progressive challengers to get the resources, staff, and tools they need to win. It’s clear that we need our own support system on the progressive side of the party. That’s why we’ve worked so hard to raise nearly $300,000 for progressive candidates and causes this cycle. But we need to do a lot more, and in order to do so we need to grow this movement. The DCCC is enforcing their anti-incumbent rules by requiring a 'loyalty' pledge from the partners they work with. But what is that loyalty to? The values of the Democratic Party? Absolutely not. It is only loyalty to incumbents-- full stop. The DCCC has stamped down on progressive challengers while embracing partners and candidates that openly work with pro-gun, anti-choice, or corporate-friendly groups. We cannot allow the DCCC to slam the door on candidates who challenge the status quo."

Also yesterday, the uber-reactionary U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent out a "key vote alert," basically warning conservatives of both parties that if they vote for H.R. 3 it will be held against them-- and the Chamber happens to be one of the biggest institutional bribe-givers in American politics. "This legislation's government price controls on prescription drugs would threaten to cut critical medical research dollars essential for innovation and the development of new cures, and would endanger the livelihood of an estimated 1 million Americans. The Chamber will consider including votes on this legislation in our annual How They Voted scorecard."

Continuing to lie and using right-wing talking points, the Chamber warned that the proposals "would curb access to lifesaving medicines and eviscerate an estimated 1 million American jobs." I wonder if they just rolled out their opposition letters to Social Security and to Medicare to come up with this crap.

This is important because, as my grandfather, a Socialist who was enamored of FDR and the New Deal, always taught me, "there's only one thing worse than the Democratic Party-- the Republican Party." Trump's and MoscowMitch's strategy for dealing with runaway drug prices is, basically, "Giddyap"-- while blaming the whole mess on the Democrats, who are easy targets. Texas Democrat Lloyd Doggett has a great way of bringing down the cost of drugs-- H.R. 1046-- which has 127 co-sponsors, most of the Democrats. The Republican Party, of course is opposed but it is Pelosi, Hoyer, Pallone and the criminal Big PhRMA bribe takers who are blocking it. What the conservatives and crooks object to in Doggett's bill is that if companies don't treat government drug price negotiations fairly, the government could enable HHS to issue licenses to competitors who would be able to produce the same drug as a generic, effectively eliminating a company’s monopoly on a particular drug. This approach would push companies to approach negotiations around drug pricing more seriously-- and make sure that patients could still access a particular drug even if the company manufacturing it opted out of negotiations. Conservatives light their hair on fire over this-- just the way the used to when Social Security and Medicare were first brought up, just the way they do when anything that helps working families is brought up. Conservatives are not and have never been the friends of the working class. Wendell Primus, the deranged anti-Medicare-for-All fanatic who Pelosi allows to set Democratic health policy has always insisted that Medicare not be allowed to negotiate drug prices at all, ever, the Republican Party position.

This week the Congressional Progressive Caucus threatened to block Pelosi's weak and ineffective drug pricing bill-- which will never get through the Senate anyway-- if it was at least a little better for working families. Although the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the Blue Dogs and New Dems-- wanted a floor fight over it, Pelosi backed down after she counted the numbers. Arch right-wing scumbag Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR), one of Congress' most corrupt members hissed "Make my day."

Pelosi insisted on keeping her shit bill but allowed a few progressive tweaks in return for the CPC dropping a threat to upend the vote altogether. Pelosi's bill allows Medicare to negotiate the prices of a few commonly used over-priced drugs, but just a few. The CPC tweaks increase he number of drugs from 35 to 50. They also forced Pelosi and her anti-healthcare czar, Primus, to include a provision that will pave the path, but still not enact, to prevent predatory drug manufacturers-- who give both Republicans and Pelosi and her team millions of dollars in bribes annually-- from continuing to hike their prices beyond inflation.

AOC (D-NY) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) led the fight against Pelosi and Primus. Today the House voted 230-192 in favor of the improved bill, every Democrat and two electorally super-vulnerable Republicans in favor. 191 Republicans + independent conservative Justin Amash voted against it. Earlier 3 right-wing Democrats voted with the Republicans to kill the bill with a failed motion to recommit-- Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ), Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ) and Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT).

Trump said he will veto the bill if it passes, which means MoscowMitch will not allow a debate, let alone a Senate vote. Jayapal and her co-chair, for the Progressive Caucus: "Democrats won back the House promising to take on pharmaceutical greed and meaningfully lower drug prices for patients. We look forward to voting for the improved H.R. 3 this week, so Congress can fulfill that commitment."

The rule for the bill that had to pass yesterday for the vote today, passed 196-170, all the Democrats + Independent Justin Amash voting for it and all the Republicans voting against it. Interestingly 37 Democrats and 27 Republicans didn't vote at all. Among the Democrats boycotting the vote were many Blue Dogs and New Dems who were present-- Kurt Schrader (Blue-OR), Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA), Terry Sewell (New Dem-AL), Ed Case (Blue Dog-HI), David Scott (Blue Dog-GA), Kathleen Rice (New Dem-NY), Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT), Greg Stanton (New Dem-AZ), Lou Correa (New Dem-CA), Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY), Jason Crow (New Dem-CO), Julia Brownley (New Dem-CA) and Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)-- but were pouting over the progressive improvements.

Doggett, who didn't vote on the rule either, pointed out that Pelosi's shady bill won’t even address cases of price gouging like that of Martin Shkreli. Finally Primus saw Pelosi partially raise the white flag Tuesday night increasing the the number of negotiated drugs to 50 and, agreeing to Jayapal's amendment directing the secretary of labor to implement a policy refunding money to employer-sponsored insurance plans when drug makers hike their prices more quickly than inflation.

Juliette Cubanski, an associate director of the Program on Medicare Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation: "The changes to H.R. 3 aren’t major in terms of dramatically moving the needle on expected savings, at least in the short term... In general for now, though, the move seems to be more about politics than policy."

The Progressive Caucus was glad to have gotten their tweaks out of Pelosi and wrote that "While we didn’t get everything we wanted, the changes we have negotiated over the past few months will bring relief to millions of Americans who would otherwise have been left out of this landmark legislation. This was a collective movement."

Shahid Buttar, the progressive Democrat challenging Pelosi in a primary noted that "Prescription drug prices today reflect a broad-based market failure and allow pharmaceutical firms to gouge patients forced to secure their medicines at any cost. Too many Americans  ultimately risk bankruptcy or homelessness simply because they fell ill. Arbitration is literally 'arbitrary,' and we need more powerful tools to ensure that medicines remain affordable. HR 1046 is a thoughtful and important proposal to subject companies enjoying regulated monopolies to consider the public interest when setting pharmaceutical prices. San Franciscans deserve a representative who will stand up for their right not to be preyed upon by drug companies instead of throwing us under the bus."

Heidi Sloan, one of the progressive Democrats running for the gerrymandered TX-25 seat occupied by anti-healthcare fanatic Roger Williams, told me right after today's vote that "I support any effort to lower out-of-control drug prices, but am disappointed HR-3 has been watered down. This is unfortunately a trend with Speaker Pelosi. We are proud to endorse and have been endorsed by Shahid Buttar, who will replace Pelosi with true progressive leadership, and help win Medicare for All, which is what we truly need to make prescription drugs available to all people."

Eva Putzova, former Flagstaff City council member and AZ-01 congressional candidate for the seat held by Republican turned Blue Dog (not much of a leap there) Tom O'Halleran, wasn't happy with the "improved" version. "Although the Pelosi bill was improved by pressure from the progressive caucus, it is far from what we need. Instead of the government having the authority to negotiate prices for just 50 drugs as now required in Pelosi’s bill, the federal government should have the authority to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies over the prices of all drugs. In the event the drug companies refuse to negotiate, then the government should be able to license competitors to sell generic drugs. It is about time that our elected representatives cared more about the health of their constituents than the profits of the drug companies."

Shaniyat Chowdhury is running for the southeast Queens congressional district held by one of Congress' most corrupt members, New Dem Greg Meeks. Like most of the New Dems, Meeks has done nothing to help solve the problem of over-priced prescription drugs. Chowdhury calls it a "tale of leadership vs lip service. Gregory Meeks will only sign onto most bills where the party will go. The only time he steps out of bounds is to help his billionaire friends. That’s more than enough to let the public know that politicians like Meeks only serve the wealthy and powerful regardless of political affiliation. Unlike him, our campaign and team will run on values like ethics and morals. It’s not enough to passively sign onto Medicare-for-All and then not negotiate the drug prices to take power away from pharmaceutical companies who are hurting the American people. I’d vote against this-- and then fight for Medicare for All which would 100% allow affordable drug prices to be negotiated.

Marie Newman, the Chicagoland progressive taking on anti-healthcare fanatic Dan Lipinski-- who even voted against Obamacare!-- said she is "so glad the Progressive Caucus worked hard and strengthened this bill. Next step: Medicare for All." Brianna Wu, the progressive Democrat running for the Boston area seat occupied by corporate New Dem Stephen Lynch, sees it much the same way Marie does. "I suppose HR-3 is a start," she said, "and I appreciate the determination of the Progressive Caucus to make the bill better. But the shortsightedness of limiting the scope of the bill to only 50 drugs concerns me. No American should be priced out of life saving prescription drugs, no matter which drug is required. This bill provides yet another argument for the need for a real Medicare For All program, where all prescription drugs are truly affordable for all Americans. Incrementalism should not be mistaken for a permanent fix. We need to get to the finish line, and when I’m in Congress, I’ll make sure we do."