WASHINGTON — Vice President Harris is proposing to use cuts to the pharmaceutical industry’s profits in Medicare to fund new home care, vision, and hearing benefits for people over the age of 65, she announced Tuesday.
Harris has followed in President Biden’s footsteps by calling to expand Medicare’s new drug price negotiation to include more drugs and make drugs qualify for negotiation with less time on the market.
The drug industry’s fear when lawmakers first allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices was that once the firewall prohibiting Medicare from interfering with drug prices was broken, Congress would find expanding the program to pay for other policies irresistible. If Harris has her way, those fears could become reality.
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