A new poll demonstrates that the vast majority of Americans support the Biden administration’s policy of Medicare negotiating with pharmaceutical companies to lower prescription drug prices.
The Associated Press/NORC poll, conducted from September 7 to 11, asked respondents whether they favored such a program. More than three-quarters (76 percent) said that they do, while only 6 percent said they were outright opposed to the program. Around one in five voters (18 percent) said they did not have an opinion on the matter.
Support for the program, which was passed last year as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, transcended party lines, with 86 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of Republicans voicing support. But when the issue was tied to President Joe Biden, who has long been a supporter of the policy, partisan politics appeared to seep into people’s opinions.
When asked about Biden’s job performance relating to prescription drug costs, 7 in 10 Democrats said they gave him positive marks. But only a quarter of Republicans said they approved of his work on the issue.
The Biden White House has heralded the program as one that will help working class Americans who are struggling to pay for critical prescription medications.
“There is no reason why Americans should be forced to pay more than any developed nation for life-saving prescriptions just to pad Big Pharma’s pockets,” Biden said in a statement last month.
Four of the ten medications that were announced in the initial round of negotiating drug costs are for the treatment of diabetes. The remainder are for treating various other conditions, including heart failure, psoriasis and arthritis, blood cancer and Crohn’s disease. The ten drugs listed account for one in five medications that are part of Medicare Part D prescription costs.
More pharmaceutical drugs subjected to negotiations will be announced in the future, the administration has said.
Per the terms of the law, companies that produce the ten medications will have until the start of next month to decide if they’ll take part in the negotiation process — if they don’t, they’ll be subject to an excise tax equal to 95 percent of their total U.S. drug sales, or they’ll have to opt out of participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Some pharmaceutical companies have sued the Biden administration over the law, contending that it is in violation of the Constitution. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is also suing the White House. In total, at least eight lawsuits seek to challenge the law’s requirement to negotiate prices.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.