Donald Trying To Use Taxpayer Money To Buy Seniors' Votes For $200 Each

 

Decade after decade, seniors have always been the most reliable voters. In 2016, Trump won among voters over 65 years old. He beat Hillary 53-44% in this cohort, which is how he managed to win. This cycle, polls have been showing his numbers among the elderly slipping drastically, enough to cost him senior-heavy states like Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and possibly Iowa, Ohio, Montana and Georgia.

Seniors have noticed that Trump is full of crap and that his three and a half years in office have been a disaster for them. So he's trying to buy their votes with a cheap scheme-- a $200 discount card for prescription drugs that he's stealing from Medicare.

Wall Street Journal reporter Stephanie Armour wrote early yesterday that his coupon program will be funded by the Medicare Trust Fund, under a program that lets him waive standards to test new initiatives. The regime expects to send out 33 Trump cards before the election. Always the smooth talking snake oil salesman , Señor T told an audience at a super-spreader event in North Carolina that "Nobody’s seen this before, these cards are incredible. The cards will be mailed out in coming weeks, I will always take care of our wonderful senior citizens. Joe Biden won’t be doing this."

This election stunt will cost the taxpayers $6.6 billion. Stat News reported that "It is unclear whether Trump’s promises on $200 credits for prescription drug coupons will come to fruition. Under the Constitution, it is Congress, not the White House, that is empowered to spend taxpayer money, and it is unclear where the roughly $6.6 billion for the program would come from. The idea has never been formally proposed or sketched out by health officials, though the New York Times reported this week that Trump officials had tried to convince the pharmaceutical industry to pay for similar cards worth $100. The drug industry refused."

Texas has one of the biggest populations of senior citizens anywhere and Julie Oliver is running in a central Texas district on a platform that includes protecting and expanding the rights of seniors, not on cheap election eve shenanigans. She told me that her mom "was a public school teacher who really struggled to survive on Social Security, and I understand that we need to expand it, not allow multi-millionaires like Roger Williams to game the system, and pay less into Social Security than their fair share. For years, he’s been threatening to cut Social Security so that Wall Street CEOs can keep getting richer. So let’s be clear. When I’m elected, we’re going to protect the earned benefits that Mexican seniors have paid into their whole lives, and we’re going to expand social security by making billionaires pay their fair share."

Cathy Kunkel is running for a House seat in the middle of the Trumpiest state in America West Virginia. She's campaigning on uplifting work families and noted yesterday that "Instead of poorly conceived election-day gimmicks, West Virginians need real healthcare reform. And we certainly won't get there with a president and Congressional representative who have tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to take away healthcare from people with pre-existing conditions-- and who have made no real attempt in the past 4 year to challenge the power of the pharmaceutical industry and bring down prescription drug prices."

The are a bunch of Republican, ex-Republican and #NeverTrump groups releasing ads attacking Trump, his morals, his allies, his tactics, and his policies. They seem to be mostly talking to each other, to some right-wing elites and to Democrats who already hate Donald's guts. But the State Government Leadership Foundation, which is the dark money PAC of the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), isn't part of that bubble. They are very much a part of the Republican Party Establishment. But yesterday they started running an ad that savages a Trumpanzee election stunt-- his new drug pricing proposal-- albeit without mentioning Donald by name. They're working with PhRMA against Trump and I doubt they would be doing anything like this if they thought he had a real chance to serve a second term. PhRMA is one of the top financial backers of the RSLC and the State Government Leadership Foundation and Trump doesn't have the guts to go after them. Watch:

Trump Fails To Lower The Cost Of Drugs Again-- Even With His Silly Stunt To Blackmail Big PhRMA

TheTrump Card

Trump is desperately trying to paint a picture-- even if just a superficial one destined to fall apart November 4-- for voters that he's delivering on his promises and boasts, like the silly fake peace treaties in the Middle East between Israel and countries it has never been at war with. Another one came to light last night when Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman reported that a deal to lower the price of drugs fell apart when Trump practically demanded that every bottle of drugs have a smiley picture of him on it!

The story about how the Donald-- who bills himself the world's greatest deal-maker-- cheated himself out of something that would have actually been impressive: lower drug prices right before the election. "After months of heated accusations and painstaking negotiations," wrote Haberman and Martin, "the White House and the pharmaceutical industry neared agreement late last month on a plan to make good on [The Donald's] longstanding promise to lower drug prices. The drug companies would spend $150 billion to address out-of-pocket consumer costs and would even pick up the bulk of the co-payments that older Americans shoulder in Medicare’s prescription drug program." Sounds pretty amazing, right? But don't forget it's Trump and his band of clowns we're talking about.

Then the agreement collapsed. The breaking point, according to four people familiar with the discussions: Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, insisted the drug makers pay for $100 cash cards that would be mailed to seniors before November-- “Trump Cards,” some in the industry called them.

Some of the drugmakers bridled at being party to what they feared would be seen as an 11th-hour political boost for Mr. Trump, the people familiar with the matter said.

White House officials insist they didn’t plan to emblazon the president’s name on the cards, which they envisioned sending to tens of millions of Americans to use for prescriptions. Mr. Trump, of course, has a long history of branding everything from skyscrapers to stimulus checks.

Regardless, one drug company executive said they worried about the optics of having the chief executives of the country’s leading pharmaceutical makers stand with the president in the Rose Garden as he hoisted an oversized card and gloated about helping a crucial bloc of voters.

“We could not agree to the administration’s plan to issue one-time savings cards right before a presidential election,” said Priscilla VanderVeer, the vice president of public affairs at PhRMA, the industry’s largest trade group. “One-time savings cards will neither provide lasting help, nor advance the fundamental reforms necessary to help seniors better afford their medicines.”

For two powerful political forces that have often been at odds over the last four years, the prospect of a bargain offered coveted public relations victories. For years, the drugmakers have long been criticized for sky-high, opaque pricing for products that are often far cheaper in other countries. With a deal, the industry would get to project public spiritedness in the midst of a pandemic, while Mr. Trump would be able to deliver an immediate, long-promised benefit to voters over 65, with whom he is faring considerably worse in polls today than he did in 2016.

Now neither side can claim bragging rights.

White House officials pointed a finger at PhRMA, maintaining that divisions in industry ranks over the financing of the agreement undermined negotiations. That’s precisely what Mr. Meadows told the trade group last month he would say if they did not reach a deal, according to a PhRMA email at the time.

Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, would not comment specifically on the savings cards.

But he noted that Mr. Trump had held back on an executive order the industry fiercely opposed, which would tie some drug prices to the prices paid by other countries-- called “most-favored nation” drug pricing. Now the president is poised to link the prices that Medicare pays for drugs administered in doctors’ offices to those paid even by social democracies in Europe.

“President Trump is working to ensure American patients are no longer forced to pay outrageously higher drug prices than those in other countries,” Mr. Deere said. “President Trump signed four executive orders earlier this summer. However, he did not release the final executive order on ‘most-favored nation’ drug pricing, giving drug companies a month to come up with a counterproposal. Negotiations did not produce an acceptable alternative, so the president is moving forward.”

It appears, then, the industry will have to confront the executive order it hoped to avoid.

Last Sunday, Mr. Trump released the order, which calls for the establishment of pilot programs tying some Medicare drugs to prices abroad. They are unlikely to be established before the election, and the industry is almost sure to file suit in response.

“The administration has chosen to pursue the most favored nation policy-- an irresponsible and unworkable policy that will give foreign governments a say in how America provides access to treatments and cures for seniors and people struggling with devastating diseases,” said Stephen J. Ubl, who heads PhRMA.

Mr. Meadows’s gambit illustrates the extent of the last-minute scramble by White House officials to score political victories ahead of November.

With the president’s response to the coronavirus widely criticized, the White House has grasped for other ways to impress voters. In recent days, [The Donald] has extended a ban on offshore oil drilling off the coast of Southern states, unveiled a multibillion-dollar aid package for hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, some of whose residents have migrated to must-win Florida, announced another $14 billion in aid to farmers and plunged into Middle East peacemaking.

Some officials in the drug industry, though, said they found it mystifying that Mr. Meadows would play what they saw as political hardball with some of the same private-sector companies that Mr. Trump is pressuring to deliver the October surprise he craves the most: a coronavirus vaccine.

“We could conceivably have vaccines being given out by numerous companies, and they’re all world-class companies, they’re fantastic companies,” [The Donald] told reporters Wednesday, singling out Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Moderna as he contradicted his health care advisers and asserted a vaccine could be widely distributed next month.

Even more puzzling is why the White House would not have taken a victory in hand that would have let the president extol his negotiating skills and crow about delivering for seniors.

Instead, they unveiled an executive order on a weekend that drew little coverage and is far harder for people to grasp than industry-subsidized cost relief for consumers.

“It’s objectively imprudent,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist. “But when you need to change the trajectory of the race, you have to be willing to take risks."

In public, Mr. Trump and his campaign have targeted the drug industry. They aired a commercial over the summer lashing “greedy drug companies.” And the president himself has repeatedly complained about the high cost of prescription drugs.

“Big Pharma (Drug Companies) are advertising against me like crazy because lower prices mean less profit,” he wrote on Twitter at the end of July. “When you watch a Fake Ad, just think lower drug prices!!!”

But while Mr. Trump was venting on Twitter, his aides were declining to implement his executive orders on prescription drug prices because they wanted to see if they could negotiate a more sweeping deal with the industry.

When the eventual, and tentative, agreement fell apart, Mr. Meadows told Mr. Ubl how the White House would proceed.

In an Aug. 28 email, read to the New York Times by an industry official, Mr. Ubl outlined to the PhRMA board of directors what Mr. Meadows had told him the White House would do if the drug companies refused to to pay for the drug card.

In addition to the “most favored nation” executive order, Mr. Ubl said Mr. Meadows would convey to the news media-- what he termed “external messaging”-- that the White House “came close to an agreement with industry but the agreement fell apart due to our opposition to ‘share the savings’ with seniors.’”

PhRMA declined to comment on its internal email.

But other industry officials said that, while not every drug company was enthusiastic about defraying the costs of co-payments, the companies had collectively reached accord and were willing to spend the money. It was the insistence on the cards, they said, that torpedoed the agreement.

On a Sept. 2 phone call between Mr. Ubl and the drug company chief executives that make up the PhRMA board, the deal collapsed. They would not agree to go forward with the card.

Some on the board were uneasy with the concept because they did not think it was sound policy. Others in the industry had concerns about the costs. But where there was broad consensus was that it was inappropriate to help create such cards that close to an election.

The House Passed a Modest Bill To Lower Drug Prices-- Yesterday, Thanks To Conservative Greed, Moscow Mitch And Trump, Drugs Prices Went Up Across The Board

What Blows Up Must Come Down by Nancy Ohanian

Keeping drug prices high has paid off well for conservatives. Both Republicans and faux-Dems-- like former House Majority Leader and anti-health care lobbyist Dick Gephardt, now a DNC Super-delegate who will help select the next Democratic nominee— have become wealthy from the PhRMA bribes. Drug manufacturers-- like Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Amgen, Abbvie, Merck, AstraZeneca, Nephron, Novartis, Sanofi, Allergan, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline and Novo Nordisk and Abbott Labs have spent millions of dollars bribing politicians and buying scumbag lobbyists like Gephardt.

In the last cycle, here are the dozen currently-serving House members who took the most in bribes from Big PhRMA in just that 2 year period. In a just world they would all be rotting in prison instead of keeping the cost of medicine high. Do you ever vote for any of these criminal characters? (The number in brackets is the amount each has taken since 1990.)

• Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)- $214,150 ($839,550)
• Greg Walden (R-OR)- $207,500 ($650,603)
• Kevin Brady (R-TX)- $163,550 ($457,201)
• Richard Neal (D-MA)- $127,000 ($399,600)
• Linda Sanchez (D-CA)- $123,004 ($335,281)
• Frank Pallone (D-NJ)- $117,200 ($698,170)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)- $111,556 ($305,206)
• Steny Hoyer (D-MD)- $96,000 ($720,572)
• Brett Guthrie (R-KY)- $95,000 ($401,862)
• John Shimkus (R-IL)- $94,500 ($616,485)
• Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL)- $94,268 ($211,133)
• Anna Eshoo (D-CA)- 90,950 ($893,315)

Although Fred Upton (R-MI) didn’t make it into the top 12 last cycle, since 1990 he’s taken the biggest share of PhRMA bribes of anyone currently serving in the House-- and is the single biggest culprit in the efforts to keep drug prices high for the American people. The 10 worst currently serving senators, each of whom has gobbled up some of the biggest portions in PhRMA bribes in their political careers are Mitt Romney (R-UT- $899,718), Moscow Mitch (R-KY- $860,313), Richard Burr (R-NC- $855,451), Robert Melendez (D-NJ- $727,573), Roy Blunt (R-MO- $659,140), Patty Murray (D-WA- $592,527), Bob Casey (D-PA- $572,534), Tom Carper (D-DE- $515,809), Chuck Schumer (D-NY- $485,779) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN- $467,402). If these politicians-- and the executives and lobbyists on the other side of the transactions-- were in prison, American drug prices would be less than half of what they are now.

I take a drug called Vimpat for neuropathy, a common side effect after chemotherapy cancer treatments. Most insurance plans, including Medicare Part-D, do not cover it and it costs, on average $1,126.19 a month. Dick Gephardt has made certain that there are no generic versions available. I bought some in Thailand recently, via Abbott Labs for around $300 a month. Big saving, although that’s still $3,600 year.

Reporters Michael Erman and Carl O’Donnell, writing for Reuters Tuesday, broke an exclusive story: Drugmakers from Pfizer to GlaxoSmithKline to hike U.S. prices on over 200 drugs. In fact most of the big drug firms that bribe American politicians “are planning to hike U.S. list prices on more than 200 drugs in the United States on Wednesday, according to drugmakers and data analyzed by healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors. Nearly all of the price increases will be below 10%, and around half of them are in the range of 4 to 6%, said 3 Axis co-founder Eric Pachman. The median price increase is around 5%, he said. More price increases are expected to be announced later this week, which could affect the median and range.”

Soaring U.S. prescription drug prices are expected to again be a central issue in the presidential election. President Donald Trump, who made bringing them down a core pledge of his 2016 campaign, is running for re-election in 2020.

…Pfizer will hike prices on more than 50 drugs, including its cancer treatment Ibrance, which is on track to bring in nearly $5 billion in revenue this year, and rheumatoid arthritis drug Xeljanz.

Pfizer spokeswoman Amy Rose confirmed the company’s planned price increases. She said the company plans to increase the list prices on around 27% of its portfolio in the United States by an average of 5.6%.

Of the medicines with increases, she said 43% of them are sterile injectibles, and many of those increases are less than $1 per product.

GlaxoSmithKline said it will raise prices on more than 30 drugs. The company will raise prices on the blockbuster respiratory treatments it delivers through its Ellipta inhaler, its recently acquired cancer drug Zejula and on several products in its HIV-focused ViiV joint venture, according to 3 Axis Advisors. Price increases ranged between 1% and 5%.

Sanofi said it will raise prices on around 10 of its drugs, with hikes ranging between 1% and 5%. The drugmaker noted the increases are in line with its commitment to not raise prices above medical inflation.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd raised prices on more than 15 drugs, in some cases by more than 6%, according to 3 Axis Advisors. A Teva spokesperson said the company regularly reviews prices in the context of market conditions, availability and cost of production.

…Ian Spatz, a senior adviser at consulting firm Manatt Health, said that drugmakers could be holding to relatively low price hikes in an attempt to stay out of politicians’ crosshairs. Trump, for instance, targeted Pfizer after a proposed round of price increases in 2018, saying in a tweet that the drugmaker “should be ashamed.”

“I’m sure many manufacturers are interested in making sure they are not called out on a large list price increase,” Spatz said.

The United States, which leaves drug pricing to market competition, has higher prices than in other countries where governments directly or indirectly control the costs, making it the world’s most lucrative market for manufacturers.

Trump, a Republican, has struggled to deliver on a pledge to lower drug prices before the November 2020 election. His administration recently proposed a rule to allow states to import prescription drugs from Canada.

The administration had previously scrapped an ambitious policy that would have required health insurers to pass billions of dollars in rebates they receive from drugmakers to Medicare patients.

The House of Representatives, controlled by Democrats, passed a bill earlier in December that would cap prices for the country’s most expensive drugs based on international prices and penalize drugmakers that do not negotiate with the Medicare insurance program for seniors. Trump has threatened to veto the bill, saying it would undermine access to lifesaving medicines.

Trump won’t have to veto it since Moscow Mitch has refused to allow it— or even more modest plans to be debated, let alone voted on. Michael Owens is running for a congressional seat in the suburbs south and southwest of Atlanta. The current congressman, corrupt Blue Dog David Scott, is perfectly content to see drug prices go up and up-- as long as he gets his cut. Owens, who is campaigning on Medicare-for-All, noted recently that he is personally allergic to shellfish and very aware of the surging prices of an Epipen-- from $94 in 2007 to $700 today. A few weeks ago he told me about his own life or death decision. “Do I pay $2,100 dollars (one for home, one for work and one for my backpack) or do I just try my luck with a $13.00 pack of Benadryl and hope that it gets into my bloodstream in time?… I need Epipens, but I also need a place to live… It’s time to stop the greed, and stand firmly on the side of saving more lives. Our tax money is used by highly profitable, private drug companies to research and develop medicines, and it is time our investment goes back into PROVIDING PUBLIC HEALTHCARE!

Heidi Sloan, a Democratic Socialist, running for a central Texas congressional seat against anti-healthcare crooked Republican Roger Williams, took a less specific point of view, expanding it out to cover a broader range of issues important to the people she seeks to represent in Congress. "I think a lot of the resistance to socialists versus progressives stems from a resentment about purity-- that when socialists insist on a framework that addresses structural issues, when we won't settle for half-measures, we're engaging in purity politics and hurting the left. That critique ignores history, as we would not currently have Donald Trump in office if the Democratic Party had not sent a corporate neoliberal to beat him. Centrists who have troublingly scarce ties or adversarial relationships with working people, labor, and marginalized communities should be criticized because we as a party must have high standards for leadership. We insist on high standards because it is what the working class deserves, and because we recognize that we cannot win unless we have the courage to demand what we actually want instead of what we think they will let us have."

Most Americans Want Drug Prices Lowered-- But The Republicans Just Will Not Permit It

Bernie has been advocating cutting prescription drug prices in half for decades. His Medicare-for-All proposal would do that. Ge wrote in his plan that "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.

Earlier this year, Bernie (+ Ro Khanna in the House) introduced the Prescription Drug Price Relief Act> Bernie: "The United States pays, by far, the highest drug prices in the world for one reason: we let drug companies get away with murder. In 2017, the pharmaceutical industry made more than twice as much money in the U.S.-- $453 billion-- than in all European countries combined. The top five drug companies alone made over $50 billion, while the top five American pharmaceutical CEOs made more than $113 million in compensation. This legislation would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make sure that Americans don’t pay more for prescription drugs than the median price of the following five countries: Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan. If pharmaceutical manufacturers refuse to lower drug prices down to the median price of these five countries, the federal government would be required to approve cheaper generic versions of those drugs, regardless of any patents or market exclusivities that are in place. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, if this legislation were to become law, the prices of most brand name drugs would be cut in half. For example, under this bill:

• Premarin, for menopause, which currently costs about $165 for a 30-day supply in the U.S., could cost $83.

• Januvia, for diabetes, which currently costs about $436 for 30-day supply in the U.S., could cost $218.

• Advair Diskus, for asthma and COPD, which currently costs about $390 for a 30-day supply in the U.S., could cost $195.

• Xarelto, for blood clots, which currently costs about $432 for a 30-day supply in the U.S., could cost $216.

• Lantus, which is insulin for diabetes and currently costs about $387 for a 30-day supply in the U.S., could cost $194.

• Humira, for arthritis, which currently costs about $2,770 for a 30-day supply in the U.S., could cost $1,385.

• Enbrel, for arthritis, which currently costs about $4,941 for a 30-day supply in the U.S., could cost $2,471.

• Ventolin, for asthma, which currently costs about $60 for a 30-day supply in the U.S., could cost $30.

• Xtandi, for cancer, which currently costs about $101 for a 30-day supply in the U.S., could cost $51. 


Bernie added that "Although President Trump recently proposed gradually lowering the prices of certain drugs covered by Medicare Part B to international price levels, his proposal does not help the over 150 million Americans who get private health insurance from their employer, many of whom struggle with high deductibles and copayments, or the more than 30 million Americans who are uninsured and must pay the full cash price of their prescription drugs at the pharmacy. Today, a full 80 percent of Americans say that drug prices are unreasonable and just nine percent think that drug companies put patients over profits. The pharmaceutical industry will continue to rip off American patients as long as it can. The Prescription Drug Price Relief Act puts an end to this highway robbery, and will help save lives and reduce premiums by lowering drug prices."

On Wednesday, the Trump Regime proposed a rule-- the "Safe Import Action Plan"-- that will allow states to import medicine from Canada. Trump and his Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, say this will lower the cost of drugs. But will it actually lower the cost of drugs?

Jim Greenwood, current head of biotech industry group BIO and a former Republican congressman, said that importation would not result in lower prices for consumers, citing nonpartisan budget experts and past FDA commissioners.

“Today’s announcement is the latest empty gesture from our elected lawmakers who want us to believe they’re serious about lowering patients’ prescription drug costs,” Greenwood said.

The Canadian government has also criticized the plan. The country’s ambassador said last month that importing medicines from Canada would not significantly lower U.S. prices. Reuters previously reported that Canada had warned U.S. officials it would oppose any import plan that might threaten the Canadian drug supply or raise costs for Canadians.

Drugs approved to be imported from Canada would exclude many prescribed drugs, such as biologic drugs, including insulin, controlled substances and intravenous drugs.

Trump, a Republican, has struggled to deliver on a pledge to lower drug prices before the November 2020 election. Healthcare costs are expected to be a major focus of the campaign by Trump and Democratic rivals vying to run against him.

The Trump administration in July scrapped an ambitious policy that would have required health insurers to pass billions of dollars in rebates they receive from drugmakers to Medicare patients.

Also in July, a federal judge struck down a Trump administration rule that would have forced pharmaceutical companies to include the wholesale prices of their drugs in television advertising.

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate are putting forth drug pricing bills that contain some of the proposals Trump has advocated, such as indexing public drug reimbursements to foreign drug costs.

But Trump has said he will veto the Democrat-led House bill if it comes to his desk on the grounds that it would slow down innovation.

And, so far, McConnell has refused to allow any bills to actually lower the cost of drugs to even come to the floor of the Senate for a debate. McConnell has even refused to allow a modest bill written by Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley and approved by the Senate Finance Committee, on which Grassley is the chair.

I asked some of the progressive Democrats for their own perspectives on how best to lower the cost of medicine. Cristina Ramirez, the most-- and only viable-- progressive in the Democratic primary to win the nomination in Texas to face anti-healthcare fanatic John Cornyn, was the first to reply. "I know," she said, "that the high cost of prescription drugs are hurting American families-- particularly ones with chronic illnesses, like my own mother, who has diabetes and has had to split her pills because they are so expensive. John Cornyn has repeatedly said that he wants to address the cost of prescription drugs, yet when he has introduced legislation, he has always been willing to change it if the drug industry, which has given him over $900,000 in campaign contributions, asks him to. I will listen to the people, not drug companies, when it comes to lowering prescription drug costs. I will advocate for a Medicare-for-All system that lets people who are sick go to the doctor and get the medicine they need without having to worry about the cost, and I will make sure the government holds Pharma companies accountable to lower drug prices overall in the long term."

Betsy Sweet is the progressive taking on Maine's Susan Collins. "First," she said, "I stand with Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna and will fight for Medicare For All and the Prescription Drug Price Relief Act because these are our best hope at delivering quality health care to all Americans. Second, we have to look more closely at intellectual property law, right now, the government has provided over 1 trillion dollars to the research and development of life-saving medicines, yet allow private industries to control the intellectual property and reap record profits. We need to reevaluate this system to ensure that everyone benefits from the research we fund collectively. Third, we need to get big money out of politics to stop big pharma from legally bribing politicians to rig the rules in their favor."

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."

Do You Think That Trump Is The Only One Motivated By Corruption In The Battle Over Drug Prices? Wake Up

Medicare-for-All Will Never Pass And Drug Prices Will Remain High Until Pelosi And Wendell Primus Are Gone From Congress

The public-- Republicans, Democrats, Independents, non-voters-- everyone wants cheaper drug prices, but the prices continue to rise. The public wants Congress to do something about it. But nothing-- a whole lot of nothing-- is getting done. PhRMA charges what the market lets them get away with. As Sam Baker pointed out in Politico over the weekend, "the most expensive drug in the world-- a gene replacement therapy that treats spinal muscular atrophy-- came to market earlier this year, with a sticker price of $2.1 million in the U.S. That drug is a groundbreaking new therapy, but prices also continue to rise for old, familiar products that people depend on every day-- most notably, insulin

This week, the House is going to vote on a very modest and unsatisfactory bill that Pelosi has been pushing and that progressives are embarrassed over. Trump prefers Chuck Grassley's Senate bill, which McConnell isn't thrilled with and which the right won't vote for. To pass it, it would take a lot of arm-twisting of conservative Republicans that Trump will never do, plus all the right-of-center and moderate Democrats. And then it would have pass the House. Big PhRMA opposes all the bills-- especially the effective one, H.R.1046 that Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) introduced and is backed by 127 Democratic co-sponsors. Doggett's bill is the only one that would crack down on PhRMA and it is being backed by Democrats from progressives like AOC (NY), Barbara Lee (CA), Ro Khanna (CA), Pramila Jayapal (WA), Raul Grijalva (AZ), Ayanna Pressley (MA), Jerry Nadler (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), Katie Porter (CA), Jamie Raskin (MN), Ted Lieu (CA), Rashid Tlaib (MI), Andy Levin (MI), and Jan Scxhakowsky (IL) to even some of the most cowardly conservatives like Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL), Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI), Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY), Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL), Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA), Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (New Dem-FL), Stephen Lynch (New Dem-MA) and Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA).

Back to Politico: "The big picture: The pharmaceutical industry almost always gets its way in Washington. The industry's top two trade organizations, together, spent more than $35 million on lobbying in 2018, more than they've ever spent before. That doesn't include individual companies' contributions, nor does it include any of the industry's campaign contributions, which are substantial."

Cenk Uygur, the progressive reform candidate running for the open congressional seat in a district in the suburbs north of Los Angeles (CA-25) told us this morning that "Drug companies don't give politicians money for charity, they do it to buy them. And unfortunately it works. Everyone knows these are bribes. The only people who won't acknowledge it are corporate politicians on both sides and the corporate media. This is a sick system that lets people die for profit. Any politician that takes money from the drug companies is selling out their voters on behalf of their donors."

This is a list of current House members who have taken the most in bribes from the health sector (which includes Big PhRMA) since 1990. All of them have been in top leadership and committee positions to prevent any movement on meaningful reform. All of them belong in prison:

• Frank Pallone (D-NJ)- $6,610,354
• Steny Hoyer (D-MD)- $4,970,630
• Michael Burgess (R-TX)- $4,466,629
• Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)- $4,403,284
• Fred Upton (R-MI)- $4,276,714
• Kevin Brady (R-TX)- $3,611,054
• Greg Walden (R-OR)- $3,468,191
• Anna Eshoo (D-CA)- $3,207,836
• John Shimkus (R-IL)- $3,026,262
• Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)- $2,944,209
• Ron Kind (D-WI)- $2,869,860
• Richard Neal (D-MA)- $2,869,426

On Friday, Adam Cancryn and Sarah Karlin-Smith, writing for PoliticoPro, reported that House progressive leaders were testing support for an effort to block Pelosi’s bill, "amid rising frustration over the crafting of the Democrats’ signature legislation.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus circulated a questionnaire asking its members if they would be willing to oppose a procedural vote on the bill-- effectively stalling the top Democratic priority-- unless Pelosi agrees to make a series of changes moving it further left, or allow votes on progressive amendments." Pelosi, who has a bizarre relationship with Big PhRMA and with their lobbyists and "ex"-lobbyists, hit the ceiling.

Few progressives have publicly suggested opposing the drug pricing legislation up until now, even as they complained of being locked out of negotiations over its specifics. The Progressive Caucus has struggled in the past to marshal its diverse membership against major Democratic priorities, and Pelosi’s drug pricing bill is seen as key to keeping Democratic control of the House in 2020.

But progressives' anger with top Democrats reached a new pitch Friday, after Politico reported that leadership weakened a key provision authored by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and approved by the Education and Labor Committee in October.

“I don’t know why I’m having to fight so hard for an amendment that already passed through committee,” Jayapal said.

The bill originally directed the federal government to study how it could require drugmakers to refund money to employer-sponsored health plans when the companies raised prices above the inflation rate-- and then issue regulations based on those conclusions.

Yet in a private meeting with advocacy groups on Thursday, top aides led by Pelosi health adviser Wendell Primus said they were cutting the regulations mandate, effectively reducing it to a simple call for a study, people who were in the room said.

You may have noticed that Blue America is in the middle of a fundraiser for Pramila's campaign. It's because of this kind of thing that we're trying to help her. Who else is going to stand up to Primus who is exactly as anti-healthcare as any garden variety Republican. There is no presence more detrimental to healthcare policy in Congress than Wendell Primus. You can help-- and maybe win a Nirvana gold record award-- by clicking on the Blue America Nirvana thermometer above.

Cancryn and Karlin-Smith continued that "Progressives have unsuccessfully pressed leadership for months to make changes in the bill that would fully eliminate the ban on Medicare’s ability to directly negotiate drug prices, increase the number of drugs the government can target for direct negotiation and make negotiated prices available to the uninsured." Big PhRMA's man inside Pelosi's office warned that Pramila and other progressives are "gravely misreading the situation if they try to stand in the way of the overwhelming hunger" for Pelosi's bill that most people view as slightly better than nothing.

The last-minute changes have left liberals irate over what they characterized as a leadership attempt to steamroll the left wing on a top priority.

Leaders had vowed to allow rank-and-file members to help shape the bill for months, they said, only to speed the legislation to the floor in the final weeks of the year. Now, they said, they were quietly watering down language that progressives touted as the element that justified supporting a bill they otherwise saw as far too timid.

“For many of my residents at home, constantly there’s this lack of a sense of urgency they feel is coming out of this chamber,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). “If we’re not going to take this head-on right away, it’s not going to make a difference.”

In an interview, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) characterized the drug pricing bill as the latest in a string of issues where Democratic leaders ignored progressive lawmakers.

Meanwhile, Doggett, the congressman from Texas who actually wrote the good drug pricing legislation said "I've tried to be positive throughout this and talk about improving the bill, rather than opposing the bill, but it would be really difficult to vote for it if no improvements are made... We are setting the standard, we are setting the model for what a Democratic president would do on prescription drugs."

Trump Promised Lower Drug Prices... But He Has Moscow Mitch Blocking Both Democratic And Republican Bills That Would Do That. Why Is He Such A Dick?

I was on the phone a few minutes ago, talking with a super-progressive running for a congressional seat in central Texas and she brought up Lloyd Doggett, chair of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, and more progressive than anyone else in the Texas congressional delegation. Some people consider his bill, the Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act of 2019 (H.R.1046) too radical; it would help too many working families and infuriate too many Big PhRMA executives, lobbyists and donors. Doggett's bill "requires the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies regarding prices for drugs covered under the Medicare prescription drug benefit. (Current law prohibits the CMS from doing so.) The CMS must take certain factors into account during negotiations, including the clinical- and cost-effectiveness of the drug, the financial burden on patients, and unmet patient needs. If the CMS is unable to negotiate the price of a drug, such drug is subject to competitive licensing in order to further its sale under Medicare, notwithstanding existing government-granted exclusivities. Additionally, for one year after a drug is provided under a competitive license, such drug is also subject to specified price limitations; if the drug is not offered at such prices, the drug is subject to additional licensing that furthers its sale under any federal program (e.g., Medicaid)." Doggett has 127 co-sponsors, all Democrats.

The bill was too much for Pelosi and Hoyer and it remains bottled up in Frank Pallone's Energy and Commerce Committee, where Pallone will make sure it never sees the light of day. Instead, Pelosi passed a meh bill-- better than nothing but not nearly as good as Doggett's bill.

But even that bill, that passed the House with bipartisan support-- and a nod from Trump-- is being prevented from getting a debate, let alone a vote, by Moscow Mitch in the most dysfunctional Senate in American history. Marianne Levine and Sarah Karlin-Smith reported on the morass the struggle to lower the cost of drugs is experiencing in the GOP-controlled Senate for Politico over the weekend.

An even less helpful bill was approved by the Senate Finance Committee (19-9) but the Finance Committee chair who's sponsoring it, Chuck Grassley (R-IA), says McConnell won't even let that one come to the floor. He said Trump-- who is probably just pretending to want to lower drug prices-- would have to lean on Moscow Mitch and tell him to put it up for a floor vote. There's no question that it would pass, but Trump doesn't really want it to pass, as long as he doesn't get the blame for it not passing.

The standstill-- even on an issue that has bipartisan backing and the support of a fickle president-- reflects the unceasing gridlock of today’s Senate and how difficult it is to move any major legislation through the upper chamber.

With Democrats in control of the House, the GOP-controlled Senate has shifted virtually its entire focus to confirming Trump’s judicial nominees where bipartisan votes aren’t needed. And heading into an election year, McConnell is loath to bring up issues that divide his caucus or risk alienating powerful industry groups. Legislative activity will only decline further if and when the Senate holds an impeachment trial that will further polarize the Capitol.

“I’ve said to people here, if you’ve been here four years or less you’ve never seen the Senate,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) “And you would have loved it. It was an interesting place. We had bills, and amendments ... we did big things.”

Senate Republicans have unsurprisingly ignored a raft of liberal measures passed by the Democratic House, including bills to curb gun violence or overhaul election laws. But even ostensibly less controversial legislation to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act or strengthen retirement security have also run aground amid partisan bickering.

The only measures regularly moving are must-pass bills to avoid a shutdown, and lawmakers are still struggling to reach a long-term deal to fund the government.

McConnell has made no secret that stacking the judiciary with conservatives is a top priority. But he also argues that the Senate could do more if the House wasn’t stalling on matters like the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement or the annual defense policy bill.

“If [Democrats] are going to keep plowing ahead with their impeachment obsession, they cannot abdicate their basic governing responsibilities at the same time,” McConnell said recently.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pushing her own legislation to curb the cost of prescription drugs, but McConnell has said it has no chance in the Senate.

Most Republicans have long opposed federal intervention when it comes to the cost of prescription drugs, but public support for action as well as Trump’s embrace of the issue may be shifting the party’s stance.

The GOP leader said in September that the Senate’s next steps on prescription drugs were “under discussion” and that the chamber is “looking at doing something on drug pricing.” Still, McConnell has demonstrated little interest in taking up Grassley’s bill, which would cap seniors’ out of pocket costs on drugs in Medicare and penalize companies that levy large price increases, among dozens of other measures aimed at lowering spending on medication.

That’s despite Trump saying he likes Grassley’s bill “very much” and top White House aides throwing their support behind the legislation.

Health industry sources closely tracking the Senate proposal, say McConnell’s office is not making an effort to help the White House get his members on board.

Asked whether McConnell would bring the bill to the floor, one Republican senator said, “I can’t imagine... It’s like Grassley, and a couple of Republicans and all the Democrats on the committee.”

Grassley has acknowledged that any action on his bill is likely slip into 2020 and that the measure currently doesn’t have enough support to pass in the Senate.

Grassley and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), the bill’s coauthor and the Finance Committee’s ranking member, are trying to make changes to the bill to garner more Republican backing.

“This bill may not have 60 votes today, but when Republicans wake up to the fact that 22 of them are up for reelection and in every state it’s an issue ... they are going to soon realize that this is the road to do something responsible,” Grassley said at an event late last month . “But we’re not there yet.”

Since the legislation advanced out of the Senate Finance Committee in July, administration officials including Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Joe Grogan, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, have been on the Hill pushing the bipartisan bill with little to show for it.

The measure was approved by the panel on a 19-9 vote, with six Republicans joining all Democrats and nine Republicans opposed. A chairman advancing a bill through committee over the opposition of most in his party is an unusual event, but the fact underscores Grassley’s commitment to moving ahead.

GOP senators who voted against the bill largely cited a proposed change to Medicare’s prescription drug benefit that they say is akin to implementing government price controls; it would impose financial penalties on companies that raise prices faster than inflation.

Grassley has said provision is necessary to keep Democrats on board with the bill. But even some of the Republicans who voted for it in committee have indicated they might not support final passage on the floor if that language remains.

Another large health policy package with bipartisan support has also faced headwinds.

The Senate HELP Committee approved a bill this summer that would aim to prevent surprise medical bills, raise the legal age to buy tobacco to 21-- a priority of McConnell’s-- and increase competition in the drug industry. While the White House hasn’t backed the package explicitly, Grogan penned an op-ed this past Wednesday calling on lawmakers to “come back to Washington in December ready to vote to protect patients from surprise medical bills.”

Momentum on the legislation stalled after pushback from doctors and dark money groups over how to resolve “surprise” bill disputes between insurance companies and health care providers. Senate GOP leadership hasn’t given any assurances it would bring the measure to the floor, though one Senate Republican aide said it could become part of an end-of-year spending package.

“I hope we can come up with a consensus document the leaders could attach to any piece of legislation they want to attach it to,” HELP Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) told reporters recently. “I think sooner or later people are going to say, ‘We’d like to do more than confirm judges and talk about impeachment.’”

Indeed, the Senate has not been doing much legislating these days. Republicans have instead prioritized the confirmation of judicial and executive branch nominees, even changing Senate rules to speed up the process. So far this Congress, the Senate has held 268 votes on nominations, compared to 98 votes on legislation.

The House has sent more than 300 bills over to the Senate, and Democrats are quick to point out that many of them have Republican support.

I spoke about this drug pricing issue with the two most progressive Senate candidates running for Republican-held seats this cycle, Betsy Sweet in Maine and Andrew Romanoff in Colorado. Andrew, the former speak of the Colorado House, is in a tough election race with two conservatives, John Hickenlooper, the establishment Democrat in the primary, and Trumpist Cory Gardner in the general. Health care-- he's a Medicare-for-All proponent-- is one of the top issues motivating his campaign. He told me that "The high cost of health care is driving more than half a million Americans into bankruptcy each year-- and 35,000 to an early grave. We need senators who will stand up to the drugmakers and the insurance companies, not do their bidding. But that won’t happen until we put an end to the corrupting influence of corporate cash and elect lawmakers who no longer owe their seats to the industries they’re supposed to be regulating."

Betsy Sweet has a similar situation. Chuck Schumer picked an easy to manipulate, middle of the road candidate in Maine, just the way he did in Colorado. "Apparently," Betsy told, "the political money from big PhRMA is more important to Mitch McConnell and his Senators than the bankruptcies  and lack of medical care millions are experiencing from unaffordable prescription drugs. Medicare for All and universal coverage the ultimate answer. The bills being held up are steps in the right direction. Inaction is unacceptable. Senator Susan Collins ought to be demanding publicly that McConnell take action on this."

By The Time McConnell Drops Dead Or Is Defeated For Reelection, Will Prescription Drugs Cost Any Less?

Drug prices are too high for many reasons, but there is just one person blocking a fix: MoscowMitch

I have to admit that Pelosi’s plan to lower drug costs is more progressive than I-- or anyone else-- expected. It certainly isn't the Lloyd Doggett plan she's kept bottled up in committee, but it's a lot closer than anyone thought she would go. If passed-- McConnell will kill it and anything like it-- it would permit Medicare to negotiate with drug makers for reasonable prices on 250 commonly-used and over-priced medicines. The price they come up with isn't just for Medicare users, but for all consumers. (And it abandons the stupid proposal from Blue Dogs and other conservatives to use third-party arbitration.) Pelosi's touch is that the plan dramatically alters the way Medicare divides responsibility for drug costs between pharmaceutical companies, insurers and taxpayers. The plan would set the maximum price of a drug at 1.2 times what other wealthy countries pay for it. a step in the right direction... but a baby step-- and NOTHING like what Bernie's and Pramila Jayapal's Medicare-for-All plan would accomplish.

Companies that refuse to negotiate in good faith would be fined-- which isn't as good as what Doggett's bill would do, basically ending their patent protection by allowing other companies to begin selling generic versions. All Republicans plus Democrats who take bribes from the pharmaceutical companies oppose this. The biggest drug company allies are the members who have taken the most in bribes from the drug makers. These are the dozen worst currently serving (in Congress, not in prison, where they belong):

• Fred Upton (R-MI)- $933,531
• Anna Eshoo (D-CA)- $882,315
• Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)- $835,950
• Steny Hoyer (D-MD)- $692,322
• Frank Pallone (D-NJ)- chair, House Energy & Commerce- $688,670
• Greg Walden (R-OR)- $632,603
• Jim Clyburn (D-SC)- $607,108
• Ron Kind (New Dem-WI)- $445,703
• Michael Burgess (R-TX)- $438,000
• Richard Neal (D-MA), chair, House Ways & Means- $388,600
• Brett Guthrie (R-KY)- $382,500
• Diana DeGette (D-CO)- $381,275

Pelosi's plan would also force drug companies that have raised the price of drugs covered by Medicare by more than the inflation rate since 2016 to lower the price.

How do we know any of this is true-- since Pelosi's bill isn't publicly available yet? On Monday, drug stocks fell sharply, particularly pharmaceutical giants AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline when word got out that Congress is going to finally crackdown on runaway prescription drug prices. Ro Khanna, a strong Medicare-for-All advocate issued a statement after Pelosi's plan started circulating:"I am pleased Speaker Pelosi’s plan takes on outrageously high drug prices through direct negotiation as opposed to private arbitration, as recommended by me and my colleagues in the Progressive Caucus,” said Rep. Khanna. “I am also proud that the Speaker has drawn from parts of my Prescription Drug Price Relief Act with Senator Sanders, ensuring that we don’t pay more for drugs than citizens in other countries. I hope the Speaker considers eliminating the reported 250-drug cap on negotiations. We should not bind our hands when it comes to lowering health care costs."

As she mentioned earlier this week, progressive California Central Valley congressional candidate Kim Williams explained that while she and her teams were knocking on doors all summer "the topic that came up most was healthcare. We've heard story after story about people who are on the brink of homelessness because of medical debt. We also lack care, and I, myself, have to drive two hours to get to my doctor often after waiting weeks to get an appointment. One in four adults live below the poverty line here and two-thirds of our kids are on some form of federal assistance. And if the national average holds true for this district, at least twenty percent of our residents are choosing between medicine and food. Is now really the time to be playing political football? And what is the point of holding on to a majority if you're going to put politics over people's lives? Every crisis families in this district face is directly tied to political neglect, and it's long past time for change.

Kim backs Medicare-for-All. The thermometer above is so that you can contribute to candidates for Congress who are campaigning on a Medicare-for-All plank  In light of what she had to say, let me reprint something published by the NY Times yesterday: "About 27.5 million people, or 8.5 percent of the population, lacked health insurance for all of 2018, up from 7.9 percent the year before, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. It was the first increase since the Affordable Care Act took full effect in 2014, and experts said it was at least partly the result of the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine that law." And that's what happens when you vote for conservatives.

J.D. Scholten also backs Medicare-for-All. "Lowering the cost of prescription drugs is a no-brainer," he told me. "As I’m driving around my district in Sioux City Sue, I frequently stop into gas stations and see a donation box on the counter for someone who just got sick or just got into an accident. The skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs plays a huge role in the unaffordability of our healthcare crisis. Ultimately, this all comes back to money. Big Pharma and healthcare lobbyists have wormed their way into Washington and have politicians bought and paid for. The healthcare and pharmaceutical industries pay for access and the ability to write legislation that benefits themselves meanwhile Americans across the country are forced to choose between life-saving prescription drugs and their rent. Big pharma shouldn’t be holding the health of Americans hostage, and politicians shouldn’t be giving them the tools to do it. My campaign is proud to refuse corporate PAC money and supports Doggett’s bill to negotiate drug prices and Medicare for All. Meanwhile, my opponent, Steve King refused to co-sponsor Lloyd Doggett's bill to lower drug prices, continues to take corporate PAC money, and peddles his own selfish agenda at the expense of Iowa’s 4th district."