WASHINGTON _ Republicans impatient to vote on legislation to lower the price of prescription drugs deployed a new tactic this week to win Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's support: tie it to the coronavirus.
The Kentucky Republican is "obviously considering" the recommendation to fast-track a long-stalled legislative proposal that would, among other things, improve affordability of eventual treatments for COVID-19, said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician who supports the legislation.
Under current law, seniors under Medicare Part D are required to pay 5% of their prescription drug costs out-of-pocket. This legislation would place a cap on the out-of-pocket expenses for which seniors are liable.
Elected officials are working to make sure nobody is priced out of receiving coronavirus treatments. Cassidy told McClatchy he very recently made a personal pitch to McConnell that prescription drug legislation would provide additional certainty that seniors are never be priced out of receiving any drugs that could help them overcome the virus.
McConnell has no current plans to allow a vote.
Sources say McConnell's position remains unchanged that as long as Senate Republicans are not unified around any specific piece of legislation to lower prescription drug costs, there won't be a vote on the Senate floor _ even on an issue Americans were citing as among their top concerns heading into the 2020 elections long before the spread of coronavirus.
McConnell also will not play an active role in helping Republicans find common ground on a blueprint for lowering prescription drug prices, viewing that task as the responsibility of President Donald Trump, who campaigned on this issue, and congressional lawmakers who have yet to produce a consensus bill.
Earlier this week, amid a growing public health crisis, the White House tried separately to pressure McConnell to commit to a floor vote by releasing a set of "principles" for drug pricing legislation and placing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, penned by the head of Trump's Domestic Policy Council, urging Congress to act.
"Now that these principles are out," one White House official told McClatchy, "what is (McConnell) planning to do?"
The answer is nothing, at least not yet, according to a senior Senate Republican aide.
"It doesn't change the dynamic for McConnell," the aide said of the latest White House move.
McConnell's refusal to budge is setting off a scramble among Republicans to win McConnell over.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa _ the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee whose prescription drug pricing bill is the blueprint Cassidy supports _ said he knows he has to find Republican support for his legislation, which the majority of Republican members opposed when a discussion draft passed out of the committee last summer.
"I think I have the responsibility as chairman of the committee that the bill came from to get more Republican supporters so that McConnell can be comfortable bringing this up," Grassley told McClatchy this week.
"I think the thing that is going to determine his bringing it up is the fact that we got 23 Republicans up for reelection and in every state ... this is one of the top three or four issues. And in some states, it's the number one issue," he said.
McConnell has shown a willingness in the past to change his mind when he decides it will politically benefit the members who make up his fragile, 53-45 Senate majority _ and when it's on an issue that won't divide his members.
That occurred in 2018, when McConnell refused to allow a vote on a bill to overhaul the criminal justice system on grounds there wasn't sufficient Republican support. But as lobbying from senators, interest groups and the White House reached a fever pitch, McConnell changed his mind and allowed his chamber to vote on then became a historic achievement for his party and the president.
Senate Republicans in tough reelection fights are now hoping McConnell makes a similar shift and schedules a vote on drug pricing legislation.
"The Senate has to act, and I'm sure it will," said Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., who confirmed he had spoken to McConnell about bringing a drug pricing bill to the floor.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, also told McClatchy she had appealed directly to McConnell about the importance of moving forward.
"I have talked to him several times about what I think is the number one issue for so many Americans, particularly seniors," said Collins, who went to the Senate floor on Wednesday with Cassidy and others to rebrand the Grassley bill as the "Making Coronavirus Drugs Affordable Act."
In election races around the country, vulnerable GOP incumbents like Collins and Gardner are being yoked by their Democratic challengers to McConnell's so-called "legislative graveyard" of bills the leader won't bring to the floor for a vote.
They are also being tied to Democratic rhetoric accusing McConnell's inaction as motivated by special interests.
Last week, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee who is working with Grassley on his bill, asserted that the "biggest problem" in getting the legislation to the floor was the fact that "Mitch McConnell has basically been under the thumb of Pharma."
The White House is casting itself as a constructive and engaged partner on this issue, with administration officials saying they are in "active conversations" with McConnell to find a solution.
But in a sign that the drug pricing issue is taking a backseat to the White House focus on the response to the coronavirus pandemic, Trump changed the topic of a meeting last week with pharmaceutical industry executives from helping to find consensus on lowering drug costs to a conversation about how to combat the coronavirus.
White House efforts to box McConnell in on drug pricing have also so far fallen short.
Domestic Policy Council Director Joe Grogan, in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, sought to put McConnell on notice by writing that the majority leader "has committed to work toward a drug pricing-package by May 22, when health-care provisions in last year's appropriations deal expire."
The administration's hope is that McConnell comes to the table with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who led her members in a party-line vote late last year on legislation conservatives call a nonstarter for giving Medicare authority to negotiate drug prices. Democrats counter this provision is bipartisan, with some polls showing public support as high as 87%.
However, sources familiar with discussions on Capitol Hill say McConnell's commitment to meeting a fast-approaching May deadline is still contingent upon Republicans working among themselves to find a unifying proposal, which hasn't happened yet.
Grassley, who insists Trump favors his approach, hasn't introduced a formal, updated version of his legislation since critics last July opposed it for provisions they said would stifle innovation and the free market.
Yet with at least a dozen other proposals being dangled as possible starting points for a debate on prescription drug pricing legislation in the Senate, the White House has not been entirely clear about whether it unequivocally supports Grassley's blueprint over anyone else's.
This lack of commitment could hurt the administration's ability to affect the outcome when there are already significant disagreements about the best path forward _ and McConnell is refusing to weigh in on which path he thinks is best.
It's not clear whether McConnell will at any point become more than a passive observer in this particular debate when his influence could be critical to members finding a deal.
In his last public comments on the matter in early February, McConnell said that while "everybody agrees prescription drug prices are too high ... we have divisions within the Republican Party on that."
He added he was "not prepared to predict" whether Republicans would overcome that.
His office declined to comment.
