House panel rejects drug pricing plan in setback to Biden

By ALAN FRAM and RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee has dealt an ominous if tentative blow to President Joe Biden’s social and environment package. The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted to derail a money-saving plan to let Medicare negotiate the price it pays for prescription drugs. That vote to drop the proposal from its piece of Biden’s signature 10-year, $3.5 trillion spending plan was not a fatal blow. The separate House Ways and Means Committee kept it alive by approving nearly identical drug-pricing language. Even so, the provision’s rejection by one committee underscores the power that any small group of Democrats will have in pushing Biden’s plans through the narrowly divided Congress.