There is actual bipartisan agreement—even with the White House—that bringing down drug prices and ending surprise medical billing would be a good thing for the American people. At least on the rhetorical level. When it comes to making it happen, to making the pharmaceutical and hospital industries unhappy, acting on it becomes a problem, on both sides of the aisle.
House Democrats are going to vote this week on a drug pricing bill that is going to receive only Democratic support because it does something big—it allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices, something that should have been baked into the Medicare law at its inception, except that they didn't know in 1965 that Big Pharma would become the behemoth that it is now, acting on behalf of drug companies' bottom line rather than for the good of humanity. The Democratic bill doesn't have a chance in hell of making it past Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to the Senate floor. McConnell won't even let a bill to lower drug costs sponsored by a powerful Republican committee chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, come to the floor. That one has the support of Democrats, too, and could probably pass in the House. But it won't get there, because McConnell won't move it.
So much for drug pricing. How about surprise medical billing, where you think you're covered for treatment because your insurance is good but—SURPRISE!!!—one member of the team of people who treated you isn't in your insurance network, so you're screwed. That's a really bad thing that has to be fixed, right? A bipartisan group of both House and Senate lawmakers think so, and the White House is on board. Who isn't? Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is reportedly keeping the top Democrat on the health committee that developed it, Patty Murray, from endorsing it because, according to The Washington Post, he is "reportedly wary of legislation that hospitals in his home state of New York have said would shortchange them." Guess what? It would "shortchange" lots of hospitals, which is why they're opposed to it, but what about the people of New York getting gouged by those same hospitals?
So there's that. If that's truly the problem here, it bodes ill for meaningful fixes to the healthcare system when we have a Democratic president who tries to do something about it. If you can't get the Democratic leader in the Senate onboard, that's a problem. Because to make the changes that have to happen, the healthcare industry is going to have to sacrifice. It’s already in gear and fighting tooth and nail and co-opting Democrats to help it even at the state level. That's got to end.