Senate lawmakers on Saturday slammed Democrats’ plan to curb drug prices, but largely upheld the rest of their economic bill as party leaders first focused on a package containing many of President Joe Biden’s top domestic targets. Ready to vote.
Elizabeth McDonough, the arbiter of the chamber’s nonpartisan rules, said lawmakers should remove language imposing heavy fines on drugmakers that boost their prices beyond inflation in the private insurance market. They were the bill’s main pricing protection for the roughly 180 million people whose health coverage comes from private insurance, either purchased through work or on their own.
Other key provisions were upheld, including giving Medicare the power to negotiate to pay for pharmaceuticals for its 64 million elderly recipients, a longtime goal for Democrats. Penalties on manufacturers for exceeding inflation will apply to drugs sold to Medicare, and there is a $2,000 annual out-of-pocket cap on drug costs and free vaccines for Medicare beneficiaries.
His decisions come as Democrats plan to begin a Senate vote on Saturday on their comprehensive package addressing climate change, energy, health care costs, taxes and even deficit reduction. Party leaders have said they believe they will have the unity needed to move the law through the Senate 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris expected to cast a vote to sever ties, Because all Republicans are expected to oppose the bill.
“This is a huge victory for the American people,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D.N.Y., said of the bill, which both parties used to blame for the worst period of inflation in four in their election campaigns. doing for. decade.
“At a time of seemingly impenetrable impasse, the Inflation Reduction Act will show the American people that even when the time calls for it, Congress is still capable of taking big steps to address major challenges,” Schumer said. “We will show the American people that, yes, we are capable of passing a historic climate package and reining in drug companies and making our tax code fair.”
In response, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Said Democrats are “misreading the outrage of the American people as a mandate for another reckless tax and spending spree.” He added that Democrats “already robbed American families once through inflation and now their solution is to rob American families a second time.”
Reducing penalties on drug manufacturers reduces the incentive for drug companies to stop charging them, which increases costs for patients.
Analysts have said that erasing that language would cut the $288 billion in 10-year savings that Democrats projected to generate the overall drug curbs — perhaps a reduction of tens of billions of dollars.
Schumer said McDonough’s decision about the price cap for private insurance was “an unfortunate decision.” But he said the live drug pricing language represents “a huge victory for the American people” and that the overall bill is “largely intact.”
The ruling came after a 10-day period that saw Democrats resurrect top constituents of Biden’s agenda that seemed dead. In rapid-fire deals with two of the Democrats’ most unlikely senators — first conservative Joe Manchin of West Virginia, then Arizona centrist Kirsten Cinema — Schumer pieced together a comprehensive package, while an earlier, larger version of Joe Manchin’s tracks. Were down from the ground, will give the party a feat against the backdrop of this fall’s Congress elections.
The lawmaker also signed off on a duty on excess emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas contributor, from oil and gas drilling. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chairman Thomas Carper, D-Dell, said he let minority communities make environmental grants and other initiatives to reduce carbon emissions.
It approved one provision if energy efficiency projects were required to pay union-scale wages in order to qualify for the tax credit, and another that required electric power for cars and trucks assembled in the United States. Will limit the vehicle tax credit.
The overall measure faces unanimous Republican opposition. But assuming Democrats fight a nonstop “vote-a-ram” of amendments — designed by many Republicans to derail the measure — they should be able to introduce the measure through the Senate.
The House is returning on Friday to vote on the bill.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said on Friday of the upcoming GOP amendments, “How about a Vote-a-Rama. It’s going to be like hell.” He said that in supporting the Democratic bill, Manchin and Cinema are “empowering legislation that will make the average person’s life more difficult” with tax increases forcing energy costs and forcing companies to hire workers. But taking it is making it difficult.
The bill provides spending and tax incentives to support coal with a move to clean fuels and aid to reduce carbon emissions. The expired subsidy that helps millions of people afford private insurance premiums will be extended for three years, and there is a provision of $4 billion to help Western states cope with drought.
There will be a new 15% minimum tax on some corporations that make more than $1 billion a year but pay much less than the current 21% corporate tax. There will also be a 1% tax on companies that buy back their own stock, after Cinema refused to support higher taxes on private equity firm executives and hedge fund managers. The IRS budget will be pumped to bolster its tax collection.
While the final cost of the bill is still being determined, it will cost more than $300 billion over 10 years to slow climate change overall, which analysts say will be the nation’s largest investment in that effort, And there will be billions more on health care. It would raise more than $700 billion in taxes and government drug cost savings, leaving nearly $300 billion for deficit reduction — a modest cut from the projected 10-year shortfall of several trillions of dollars.
Democrats are using special procedures that would allow them to pass the measure without reaching the 60-vote majority that legislation often requires in the Senate.
It is the lawmaker’s job to decide whether parts of the law should be left out for violating those rules, including a requirement that the provision be primarily aimed at influencing the federal budget, not new policy. In order to apply.
