President Biden pitches plan to lower the cost of essential drugs at appearance in Auburn

A con­ti­nent removed from the resent­ment and accu­sa­tion of Wash­ing­ton, D.C., Joe Biden came to South King Coun­ty, put aside trap­pings as leader of the free world and resumed his long­time role as a war­rior for mid­dle class America.

The 46th Pres­i­dent spoke not for the ages, but of years as a wid­owed par­ent of two lit­tle boys who could not afford child­care even as a U.S. Sen­a­tor, as an aneurysm patient cared for by nurs­es – “They make you want to live” – and as a boy who sensed one night that his father was dis­tressed and restless.

He learned why from his moth­er in route to school the next day: “They told him, hon­ey, they’re not going to cov­er his insur­ance any­more in his job.”

The gut mes­sage, Biden told an audi­ence of stu­dents and elect­ed offi­cials at Green Riv­er Col­lege on Fri­day: “In Amer­i­ca, health­care is a right, not a privilege.”

Whether cam­paign­ing in Iowa’s pres­i­den­tial cau­cus­es, or as vice pres­i­dent vis­it­ing voca­tion­al stu­dents in Ren­ton, Biden has always enjoyed com­mu­ni­ty col­leges and the stu­dents they draw. “They’re com­ing back because they want to bet­ter their lives, break­ing their necks to get here,” he said here. Of Green Riv­er, he added: “This is a great col­lege.” First Lady Jill Biden teach­es at a col­lege in north­ern Vir­ginia. In the words of her hus­band, “the only First Lady ever to work full time.”

Yes­ter­day, the Pres­i­dent was the head­lin­er at pricey Demo­c­ra­t­ic fundrais­ers in Seat­tle and Port­land. He used Seward Park to sign an Earth Day exec­u­tive order for greater study, fire pre­ven­tion and pro­tec­tion of forests on fed­er­al lands.

He lament­ed the sour polar­iza­tion of a Sen­ate in which he served for thir­ty-six years, and Trump-inspired rad­i­cal­ism of its Republicans.

“This is the MAGA Par­ty,” he said at Seward Park. “It’s, you know, and you got the Sen­a­tor from Texas (Ted Cruz) and these guys are a dif­fer­ent breed of cat.”

The President’s cen­tral mes­sage, how­ev­er, was that cor­po­rate Amer­i­ca is get­ting the gold mine while most Amer­i­can fam­i­lies get the shaft — and are pay­ing high­er prices while prof­its soar. It was a mes­sage ground­ed in social obligation.

“I’m a cap­i­tal­ist, and I think if you can make a bil­lion dol­lars or a mil­lion dol­lars or a hun­dred mil­lion, you should be able to do it,” said Biden. Rais­ing his voice, the Pres­i­dent added: “But pay your fair share! Pay your fair share!”

“Of the For­tune 500 com­pa­nies, forty of them last year, they made $40 bil­lion, and they didn’t pay a sin­gle, soli­tary pen­ny in tax­es.” At this point, low­er­ing his voice, Biden declared, “It’s not right. It’s just not fair.”

He zoned in by cit­ing a punch to the finances of many an Amer­i­can family.

An East­lake High School senior, Juliana Grac­ef­fo, intro­duced Biden with her sto­ry of a fam­i­ly cop­ing with health cri­sis in the new Gild­ed Age.

She was rushed to Children’s Hos­pi­tal on Christ­mas Eve at age four and diag­nosed with Type 1 dia­betes. She held up a cap­sule, say­ing: “Here is the insulin pump that deliv­ers the essen­tial insulin hor­mone which I need to survive.”

The treat­ment cost $40 a vial, four­teen years ago. That cost has since risen to $300. Biden took it from there. The mes­sage of the day was that the coun­try should cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month, action already tak­en at the state lev­el (with Repub­li­can co-spon­sor­ship in the Leg­is­la­ture) in Washington.

“Today, near­ly one in four Amer­i­cans who need pre­scrip­tion drugs strug­gle to afford them,” said the Pres­i­dent. “Near­ly thir­ty per­cent of peo­ple need­ing essen­tial drugs – dos­es that they’re sup­posed to take – thir­ty per­cent skipped their dos­es because they want to extend life of the drug that they need.”

“For God’s sake, this is the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca! What are we doing? It’s sim­ply wrong, espe­cial­ly since it doesn’t cost the drug com­pa­nies near­ly as much to make the drug or the research that went into it.”

Of bills like those faced by Juliana’s fam­i­ly, asked Biden, “How do you look at your child and deal with it? There’s no excuse. None. We are not ask­ing the drug com­pa­nies to do any­thing they can’t afford.”

The Pres­i­dent pro­posed four steps to hold down costs.

First, cap insulin costs at $35 a month.

“It still means, it costs them (fam­i­lies) three and a half times as much as it costs them (phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers),” said Biden.

Sec­ond, the 46th Pres­i­dent would impose a “steep tax” if com­pa­nies boost drug prices high­er than the rate of inflation.

He not­ed that we reg­u­late what util­i­ties can charge for their essen­tial ser­vices. “You should still be able to make a sig­nif­i­cant prof­it, not gouge.”

Third, Biden called for cap­ping at $2,000 the amount seniors on Medicare pay for pre­scrip­tion drugs. “If you’re on Medicare,” he explained, “you won’t have to spend more than $2,000 out of pock­et, which is a lot of mon­ey.” The remain­ing costs would be split between Medicare, drug com­pa­nies and insurers.

And final­ly, in a call heard for years, Biden would like to give Medicare the pow­er to nego­ti­ate pre­scrip­tion drug prices.

A Repub­li­can-run Con­gress left this out when it enact­ed a pre­scrip­tion drug plan under Medicare. (The House com­mit­tee chair who wrote the bill quit Con­gress to become chief lob­by­ist for the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal industry.)

Repub­li­cans are demand­ing that the Biden admin­is­tra­tion offer plans to curb major sources of infla­tion. Biden offered one at Green Riv­er Col­lege, includ­ing mea­sures being blocked by Repub­li­cans in the Sen­ate where he served.

The pro­pos­al comes from a guy who rode the train dai­ly to D.C. from his home in Delaware, because he had two lit­tle boys at home. (Biden’s sis­ter bore much of the care bur­den.) The plan was offered by a guy whose father lost his health insur­ance. The Pres­i­dent was speak­ing to an audi­ence of stu­dents, includ­ing nurs­ing stu­dents, whose fam­i­lies feel the bur­dens of which he spoke.

Juliana Grac­ef­fo got to talk briefly with Biden before intro­duc­ing him.

“Yeah,” she told The Seat­tle Times, “He’s just a gen­uine guy.”

It’s a Joe Biden the nation­al media is not allow­ing us to see much of.

He ought to get around more. The Democ­rats can avoid a blood­bath if they take to the coun­try the mes­sage deliv­ered today at Green Riv­er College.