Democrats Vote to Curb Big Pharma, Ensure Health Care Coverage for 14 Million Americans and Make Corporations Pay Their Fair Share of Taxes
WASHINGTON — Following the U.S. Senate’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, a bill set to enact historic drug pricing reform and reduce the national deficit by $305 billion, Health Care for America Now Executive Director Margarida Jorge released the following statement:
The U.S. Senate’s vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act is a historic step forward in the fight to make vital health care affordable for millions of Americans. Despite intense lobbying and political donations from pharmaceutical corporations, Senate Democrats delivered on their long-time promise to pass Medicare negotiations and lower out-of-pocket costs for prescriptions in Part D, passing the most sweeping health care reforms since the Affordable Care Act.
But this bill doesn’t just help seniors. In the same package, lawmakers will also make health care coverage more affordable for 14.5 million Affordable Care Act marketplace enrollees from now through 2025. They will lower energy bills for millions, reduce carbon emissions and create new jobs through the climate provisions. By finally empowering the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to track down wealthy tax cheats and requiring big corporations to pay a minimum tax, the legislation raises enough money to reduce the deficit by over $300 billion while not raising taxes on anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year.
Recent polls reflect overwhelming bipartisan support for the reconciliation package across the country, but rather than uniting with Democrats to tax price-gouging corporations and lower health care costs, Republicans universally opposed this bill. Republicans introduced amendment after amendment to weaken the bill, including one that effectively narrowed the $35 a month insulin cap to only Medicare enrollees. All but seven Republicans voted against lowering insulin costs for tens of millions of Americans who have private insurance.
This historic bill is now on its way to the U.S. House of Representatives, where lawmakers must act quickly to pass it and then send it to the President’s desk. Americans have waited a long time for these long-overdue reforms. Now more than ever, families need affordable prescriptions for seniors, insurance they can afford, lower power bills and a tax system that requires the richest people and corporations to pay what they owe.
