WASHINGTON — If Democrats are spoiling for a 2020 fight focused on anything besides impeaching President Trump, consider this week’s vote on a massive drug pricing package their opening salvo.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Lower Drug Costs Now Act, a sweeping bill that pledges to lower consumer drug costs by 50%, includes ideas long touted by progressives in Washington: It would let Medicare directly negotiate the price of at least 50 drugs per year and it would cap U.S. drug payments based on costs in other developed countries.
It is hardly the bipartisan drug pricing compromise that lawmakers from both parties pledged at the beginning of this year — the Republican-controlled Senate will almost certainly ignore the bill, meaning it won’t become law before next year’s election. President Trump pledged Tuesday to veto it.
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