Parliamentarian weakens Democrats’ drug plan in Inflation Reduction Act, as Senate prepares to vote
The Senate parliamentarian on Saturday dealt a blow to Democrats' plan for curbing drug prices but left the rest of their sprawling economic bill largely intact as party leaders prepared for the first votes on a package containing many of President Joe Biden's top domestic goals.Elizabeth MacDonough, the chamber's nonpartisan rules arbiter, said lawmakers must remove language imposing hefty penalties on drugmakers that boost their prices beyond inflation in the private insurance market. Those were the bill's chief pricing protections for the roughly 180 million people whose health coverage comes from private insurance, either through work or bought on their own. Other major provisions were left intact, including giving Medicare the power to negotiate what it pays for pharmaceuti...
