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Democrats Did Something Big On Health Care And Nobody Is Paying Attention

House Democrats passed a major health care bill last December, one that promises substantial, much-needed relief to Americans struggling with cost of prescription drugs.

Yet somehow, almost no one outside of Washington seems to be paying attention.

The most important provision of the bill would allow the federal government to negotiate directly with manufacturers over drug prices, as authorities in other countries do. That could slash the price of everything from insulin to cutting-edge, breakthrough treatments for cancer for the vast majority of Americans.

Steve Knievel, an advocate at Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program says the bill is “the most impactful piece of drug legislation” to get through a house of Congress since the creation of the Medicare drug benefit in 2003.

Rachel Sachs, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis and a widely published researcher on the drug industry, told HuffPost that the bill is “an enormous deal … a sweeping reform that would be highly beneficial to patients.”

The proposal has its gaps, as all legislation does. It also comes with trade-offs, mainly in the form of lower revenue for drugmakers ― which sounds great to industry critics angry over what they say are obscene pharmaceutical profits, just as it sounds lousy to industry defenders who say those profits underwrite the development of miracle cures.

But whatever its shortcomings and whatever its consequences, the legislation would represent a major, transformational shift in the relationship between government and one of health care’s most important and powerful industries.

The bill probably would have dominated the news cycle, and have more of a profile today, if the vote hadn’t taken place right when the country was focusing on impeachment ― and if the proposal’s natural champions in the progressive community, who fought with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) over its reach and eventually won some key concessions,...

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