Pelosi offers drug-price plan

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, trying to seize the agenda on a top consumer issue, announced an ambitious prescription drug plan Thursday to 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 refusing to negotiate could face steep penalties. Companies raising 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 high-stakes gamble for all sides in Washington. Polls show 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 Trump can sign onto and 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 creating 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.

The industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said Pelosi's plan was "radical" and would usher in an era of government price-setting that would "blow up" the current system, stifling innovation. But health insurers called the plan "bold reform" and hospitals said it takes "significant strides toward reducing out-of-control drug prices." Public Citizen, a consumer group on the political left, said the bill didn't go far enough because it left intact drugmakers' monopoly on new medicines.

A leading House progressive, Texas Democrat Lloyd Doggett, agreed that more is required. "This new bill was promoted as a way to sway President Trump and a reluctant Republican Senate," said Doggett. "I await their embrace."