A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

12 January 2017

Why did Jon Tester vote against an amendment to lower drug prices?

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During last night’s “vote-a-thon” in the Senate on amendments to Senate Concurrent Resolution 3, the blueprint for repealing the Affordable Care Act through the budget reconciliation process, Sen. Jon Tester joined 12 other Democratic Senators (see Table 1, below) to help Republicans defeat an amendment to lower drug prices.

Update. Tester, Booker, and their fellow Democratic protectors of high drug prices, are catching hell from progressives, reports Ed Kilgore at the Daily Intelligencer. And Tester’s vote is hard to square with his position eleven years ago:

Negotiate for lower prescription drug prices. Last year in the Montana Legislature, I sponsored and passed a bipartisan bill to provide real prescription drug relief, cover low-income seniors, and negotiate lower drug prices for Montana senior citizens. I’m serious about making health care more affordable and cutting the federal deficit. In the US Senate, I’ll work to bring the benefit package we delivered to Montanans to the whole country. It’s simple — negotiating for lower prescription drug prices saves tax dollars and helps seniors. Source: 2006 Senate campaign website, testerforsenate.com, “Issues”, Feb 3, 2006.

Here’s the complete text of the drug price lowering amendment they opposed:

SA 178. Ms. KLOBUCHAR (for herself and Mr. Sanders) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by her to the concurrent resolution S. Con. Res. 3, setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2017 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2018 through 2026; as follows:

At the end of title III, add the following:

SEC. 3___. DEFICIT-NEUTRAL RESERVE FUND RELATING TO LOWERING PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES FOR AMERICANS BY IMPORTING DRUGS FROM CANADA.

The Chairman of the Committee on the Budget of the Senate may revise the allocations of a committee or committees, aggregates, and other appropriate levels in this resolution for one or more bills, joint resolutions, amendments, amendments between the Houses, motions, or conference reports relating to lowering prescription drug prices, including through the importation of safe and affordable prescription drugs from Canada by American pharmacists, wholesalers, and individuals with a valid prescription from a provider licensed to practice in the United States, by the amounts provided in such legislation for those purposes, provided that such legislation would not increase the deficit over either the period of the total of fiscal years 2017 through 2021 or the period of the total of fiscal years 2017 through 2026.

Both Democratic Senators from Washington, New Jersey, and Delaware, and both Senators from Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Colorado, opposed lowering drug prices. All of these states have high tech industries, although I’ve never thought of Washington as a center of pharmaceutical manufacturing. But what excuse do Tester and Heitkamp offer for helping Republicans keep prescription drugs prices skyhigh? Neither Montana nor North Dakota is a big pill producing state. Perhaps the answer lies in their campaign contributions.

Table 1

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