On Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called out billionaire Elon Musk for killing proposals to reform pharmaceutical benefit managers in order to lower drug prices.
Ocasio-Cortez pointed out the overwhelming bipartisan support to reform PBMs, which act as negotiating entities overseeing prescription drug benefits for insurance plans. They have an almost monopolistic power over the drug supply chain. And she explained that reforms might have been passed … if Musk didn’t control the GOP.
“Now this bill was almost passed … within a bigger package to prevent the government shutting down,” she said during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing. “Democrats supported it. Republicans supported it. So why isn’t this moving? Well … Elon Musk began firing off a barrage of social media posts opposing pharmacy benefit manager reform. And all of a sudden, this bill that had almost unanimous support fell apart in a matter of hours.”
Musk worked to kill a government funding bill that included reforms for PBMs. He said the bill was full of “pork.”
Keep in mind, a vast array of patients and consumer advocates support reforming PBMs. And in December, legislation to reform them was co-sponsored in the House by Republican Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee and Democrat Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts, and in the Senate by (unbelievably) Democrat Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Republican Josh Hawley of Missouri. Talk about bipartisan.
“The problem here is not a substance issue. It's not a process issue. It's an oligarchy issue. It's a power issue,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “And this room is where the power of the people of the United States reside.”
“Whether you're a Democrat or you're a Republican, everyone here was elected to be accountable to the people of the United States, not to be governed by tweet, but to be governed by their duly elected representation,” she said, pointing to a printed-out post Musk dismissively made on X about PBMs. “And so we can get this done because there are more of us than there are of him.”
Democrats have been effective in using their positions on Republican-led committees to draw attention to the illegal takeover of our government agencies by Musk, Trump, and their destructive Department of Government Efficiency cabal.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
