13 Senate Democrats ruined the chance to have cheaper prescription drugs imported from Canada.
This week Senators Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) brought to a vote a proposed amendment to a concurrent budget resolution in an effort to lower the cost of prescription drugs and allow for the importing of cheaper drugs from other countries.
The amendment had the support of 12 Republicans, including Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rand Paul (R-KY), and John McCain. However, because of thirteen Democrats that voted against it, the amendment failed.
Incredible: Cory Booker & several other Dems join GOP maj in voting down Bernie amendment on importing cheaper drugs https://t.co/yb8N1PRYjp
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) January 12, 2017
Currently, there are several problems with prescription drug prices being allowed to skyrocket. The top ones are that Medicare and Medicaid are prohibited by law from negotiating with drug companies for better prices and the ban on importing less expensive prescription drugs from out of the country.
Sanders even went so far as to quote Donald Trump:
“The power and wealth of the pharmaceutical industry and their 1,300 lobbyists and unlimited sums of money have bought the United States congress. Today, Mr. Trump, a guy I don’t quote very often, he said that pharma gets away with murder, that’s what Trump said, and he’s right.”
According to Jezebel, there is something seriously iffy about the Democrats that voted “nay”:
Between 2010 and 2016, a handful of the Democratic senators who voted “nay” were amongst the top Senate recipients funded by pharmaceutical companies: Sen. Booker received $267,338; Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) received $254,649; Robert Casey (D-PA) received $250,730; Michael Bennet (D-CO) received $222,000.
Here is a list of the 13 Democrats that voted ‘Nay’, along with the year they are up for reelection:
Michael Bennet (D-CO) – 2022
Cory Booker (D-NJ) – 2020
Maria Cantwell (D-WA) – 2018
Thomas R. Carper (D-DE) – 2018
Bob Casey, Jr. (D-PA) – 2018
Chris Coons (D-DE) – 2020
Joe Donnelly (D-IN) – 2018
Martin Heinrich (D-NM) – 2018
Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) – 2018
Bob Menendez (D-NJ) – 2018
Patty Murray (D-WA) – 2022
Jon Tester (D-MT) – 2018
Mark Warner (D-VA) – 2020
The full vote tally can be seen here.
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