Key Points

  • President Joe Biden said the federal Medicare program should negotiate prices for at least 50 prescription drugs each year, up from the current target of 20 medicines.
  • That proposal is one of several new health-care policy plans Biden will outline during his State of the Union address Thursday.
  • But the fate of his new proposals will be in the hands of a divided Congress, making it highly uncertain whether they will pass into law.
    • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      From 2007 to 2011 Democrats controlled both the house and the senate. Obama was president from 2008-2012.

      Democrats squandered it.

      • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Democrats only had a Senate supermajority for 72 days.

        Furthermore, a supermajority of exactly 60 votes only allows Democrats to pass something that 100% of them support. And Lieberman did not support anything more far reaching than the ACA, such as a public option.

          • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            What’s your narrative? Democrats had control of both the Senate and the house with a Democrat president for years and somehow it’s still Republicans fault they did basically fuck all with it?

        • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Doesn’t change the fact. Democrats had control of both the Senate and the house. They squandered it.

            • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              And if that’s not sufficient evidence to believe either our Democracy is completely broken or Democrats are corrupt or incompetent then you must be someone who’s continuing to benefit from all of this while quality of life deteriorates for the rest of us.

              • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                No, it’s evidence that Democrats are diverse. Not all of them agree with me or with you.

                And in a democracy, legislation requires building a consensus. That means nobody will get everything they wanted.

                • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  I’m really sick of this lecture as if I don’t understand that. I’m a human being who lives in reality I’m very familiar with not getting everything I want. I don’t buy a car for $20,000 and then complain it doesn’t have the quality of a $300,000 car. I will complain when the $20,000 car doesn’t deliver what I expect for a $20,000 car. This is no different. Democrats held a majority in congress for four years. What they delivered with that kind of opportunity was inexcusably insufficient.

                  • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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                    8 months ago

                    I think your expectations are too high. Democrats delivered at least as much as any other Congress in the past 50 years