BREAKING: Democrats Say They Have A Deal On Rx Drugs
It could be a big breakthrough, with real impacts on everyday life. But we need to see what's actually in the plan.
Pretty big news from Washington today: It looks like Democrats finally have a deal on prescription drug legislation, just days after that effort seemed to collapse.
I say it "looks like" they have a deal because experience has taught all of us that the legislative process is full of unexpected twists.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the agreement Tuesday afternoon and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, widely thought to be the strongest holdout, issued a statement affirming her support. Both the White House and House Democrats are on board too. That suggests the agreement has the votes it needs.
But at least one key detail of the plan is still "being written," a Democratic senator says. It hasn't yet gone through the "Byrd Bath" process, in which the Senate Parliamentarian makes judgments on whether specific provisions fall within the guidelines of the legislative process that Democrats are using for this bill. So until the text is final and then approved as part of the larger Build Back Better legislation, it's best to take nothing for granted.
Likewise, we'll need to see precisely what's in the agreement before we can assess its impact.
The outlines are clear, both from prior reporting and statements coming out now.
The agreement has versions of the key elements Democratic leaders always wanted -- a mechanism for the federal government to negotiate the prices of certain drugs, limits on how much manufacturers can raise prices year after year and a redesign of the Medicare drug benefit to cap out-of-pocket expenses for seniors.
And there are some features that will please supporters of ambitious price regulation, like applying those inflation caps to all drugs, not just those that Medicare covers. That provision, plus a limit on the price of insulin, should mean benefits that even non-elderly Americans eventually see first-hand.
But the proposal is still full of compromises, which were necessary to win over those holdouts -- all of whom get substantial campaign contributions from the drug industry and all of whom have argued, as the companies do, that reducing company revenue would stifle innovation. Democratic leaders tried to address that concern by pledging to increase support for basic scientific research and for biotech startups. That wasn't enough, so they've scaled back the legislation’s provisions.
One of the biggest compromises exempts drugs from negotiation for the length of their "exclusivity" periods, which is the time frame during which the FDA effectively guarantees them a monopoly. In some cases, it appears, the exemption lasts even longer — although it’s hard to be sure from the summary documents now circulating on Capitol Hill.
Get used to that uncertainty, by the way. It's going to take some time even for veteran analysts to go through the text and figure out what each provision means. Only then will it be possible to say with certainty what the proposal does or doesn't do -- and for better or worse, depending on your perspective.
Until then, here's a link to my news story today (co-written with my colleague Igor Bobic, and being updated in real-time as we learn more):
And here’s a link to my article from Monday night (just in time!) outlining the likely provisions of a deal and what they would mean.
Thanks for reading!