House panel rejects drug pricing plan in setback to Biden
WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee dealt an ominous if tentative blow Wednesday to President Joe Biden’s huge social and environment package, derailing a money-saving plan to let Medicare negotiate the price it pays for prescription drugs.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee vote to drop the proposal from its piece of Biden's signature 10-year, $3.5 trillion spending plan was not necessarily fatal. The separate House Ways and Means Committee kept it alive by approving nearly identical drug-pricing language.
Even so, the provision's rejection by one committee underscores the clout that moderates looking to curb new spending — or any small group of Democrats — have as Biden and party leaders try pushing the entire package through the narrowly divided Congress.
Facing unanimous Republican opposition, Democrats will be able to lose just three House votes and none in the 50-50 Senate to send the overall measure to Biden. That's a precarious margin for what will be an enormous bill laced with numerous politically sensitive initiatives on spending and taxes.
The committees' votes on pharmaceutical drugs came as Biden held face-to-face meetings with two moderate Democratic senators who've said the overall size of the $3.5 trillion proposal is too big. The separate sessions with Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia underscored a stepped-up White House drive to avoid Democratic defections.
The Energy and Commerce vote on the drug-pricing language was 29-29, with three moderate Democrats joining Republicans to oppose it: Reps. Scott Peters of California, Kathleen Rice of New York and Kurt Schrader of Oregon. Tie votes in Congress are usually insufficient to keep legislative provisions alive.
Henry Connelly, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy...