Opin­ion: Mean­ing­ful drug pric­ing re­forms are head­ed nowhere fast

Pres­i­dent Biden is tak­ing a page out of for­mer Pres­i­dent Trump’s drug pric­ing play­book: of­fer big promis­es around tough ne­go­ti­a­tions with drug­mak­ers, but fail to of­fer a vi­able path for get­ting it done.

Warn­ing signs that drug pric­ing would no longer be a pri­or­i­ty for the pres­i­dent’s mar­quee leg­is­la­tion came over the past week from the Wash­ing­ton Post and Wall Street Jour­nal. To the cha­grin of House Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi (D-CA) and oth­er De­moc­rats, Pres­i­dent Biden’s mas­sive, $1.8 tril­lion so­cial safe­ty net plan to help Amer­i­can fam­i­lies, de­tails of which were un­veiled Wednes­day morn­ing, does not in­clude a ma­jor push to cur­tail drug prices.

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