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26. Rice votes against lower drug costs -- and her party

https://www.liherald.com/stories/rice-votes-against-lower-drug-costs-and-her-party,135168

October 1, 2021

U.S. Rep. Kathleen Rice, of the 4th District, was one of three moderate Democrats who voted against a key provision that would lower prescription drug prices in President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion infrastructure package, known as the Build Back Better Act, in the House of Energy and Commerce Committee. The others were Rep. Kurt Schrader from Oregon and Rep. Scott Peters from California.

On Sept. 15, the three Democratic votes, in addition to the unanimous disapproval from the Republicans, tied the vote 29-29 in the committee, blocking the plan that would allow Medicare programs to negotiate lower costs for prescription drugs instead of pharmaceutical companies setting their own prices with little competition. This drug pricing provision is based on H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, which passed with zero opposition in 2019. The Congressional Budget Office found that this bill would save the government $456 billion over 10 years and reduce drug prices by 57 percent to 75 percent.

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According to Data for Progress, 90 percent of Rice’s constituents support the provision that she voted against.

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Pharmaceutical companies have spent the most of any industry on federal lobbying this year. Combined, they have spent $171 million in 2021, more than twice the amount of the next highest spending industry, and their lobbying expenditures have increased since 2013, topping at $309 million in 2020.

In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signed by Rice and nine other moderate Democrats in May, Peters argued that reduced drug prices would hamper research and development of new medicines in the pharmaceutical industry, echoing the statement that the leading pharmaceutical federal lobbying contributor this year, PhRMA, published in an open letter that was signed by the heads of major pharmaceutical companies.

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