In response to Gregory Ruff’s letter, “Trump’s the new sheriff,” I would encourage Ruff to study his history more carefully. Democrats have championed allowing Medicare to negotiate with Big Pharma from the inception of President Bush’s prescription drug benefit passage in 2003, and Republicans have blocked it all along.
In 2007, the House passed a bill that would have granted Medicare the ability to negotiate with Big Pharma, and a Senate procedural vote blocked it. Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Sanders (I) and pretty much every other Democratic senator, along with six Republican senators, voted Milanobet to give bargaining power. This bill was blocked by 42 Republican senators who cared more about Big Pharma than the patients paying for these expensive drugs.
Hillary Clinton’s record speaks for itself. She championed disadvantaged seniors, not Big Pharma. Since then, Republicans have continued to block negotiating power. The “new sheriff’s” ideas aren’t that new after all. It would’ve been nice to have seen an editor’s comment on this.
Chris Anderson
Spokane
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.