The House will vote next week on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's drug pricing bill, according to The Hill.
The bill would allow the HHS secretary to negotiate lower prices for as many as 250 drugs per year and charge those lower prices to patients on Medicare and patients with private insurance.
The bill is expected to clear the House but be stopped in the Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called it "socialist" and vowed to block it.
Republicans have argued the bill will hurt innovation and development of new drugs and cost the U.S. economy as much as $1 trillion per year for a decade.
President Trump supports a more modest bill from the Senate Finance Committee, though many Republicans also oppose that bill, according to The Hill.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., told The Hill Dec. 5 that some progressive Democrats may vote against Ms. Pelosi's bill if changes aren't made before the vote. Progressive Democrats want to increase the minimum number of drug prices to be negotiated, extend the lower drug prices to those who are uninsured, and completely repeal the ban on Medicare negotiating drug prices rather than creating an exception to the ban for certain drugs.
The Congressional Budget Office released a report Oct. 11 saying Ms. Pelosi's bill would save Medicare up to $345 billion over seven years. Next week before the vote, the CBO will release another report showing the total amount Ms. Pelosi's bill would save Medicare, a Democrat aide told The Hill.
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