Pelosi offers Medicare negotiation plan to curb drug prices

WASHINGTON >> House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, trying to seize the agenda on a leading consumer issue, announced an ambitious prescription drug plan Thursday that would allow Medicare to negotiate prices for seniors and younger people.

The proposal would direct Medicare to bargain over as many as 250, but no fewer than 25, of the costliest drugs. Insulin is on the list. Drugmakers that refuse to negotiate could face steep penalties. Companies that raise prices beyond inflation would have to pay rebates to Medicare.

The plan would limit copays for seniors covered by Medicare’s “Part D” prescription drug program to $2,000. Medicare-negotiated prices would be available to other buyers, such as employer health plans.

It’s shaping up as a highstakes gamble for all sides in Washington. Polls show that high drug prices have Americans worried, and regardless of party affiliation, they want Congress to act. As a candidate, President Donald Trump called for Medicare negotiations but then later seemed to drop the idea.

Pelosi, D-calif., said her goal is a deal that Trump can sign onto and that could pass the GOP-controlled Senate.

“We don’t want a political issue at the polls,” Pelosi said at a news conference. “We want a solution in Congress, and we want it now.”

But in the Senate, Republican John Cornyn of Texas said the proposal “has absolutely no chance —zero, zip, nada” of passing. Some House Republicans quickly dismissed it as “socialism.”

The 2003 law that created Medicare’s prescription drug benefit barred the program from negotiating prices, a restriction Democrats have long opposed. Most Republicans say they believe price negotiations are best left to private players such as insurance companies.