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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.

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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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