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Three and a half weeks after he exited the 2024 presidential race amid dismal poll numbers and questions over his ability to defeat Donald Trump a second time, President Joe Biden got a hero’s welcome on Thursday as he and Vice President Kamala Harris touted a long-awaited victory in a years-long fight against high prescription drug prices.
The crowd that came to see them at Prince George’s County Community College in Maryland roared with approval as Biden and Harris walked on the stage at what was billed as an official White House event but had the energy and atmosphere of one of the boisterous rallies that Harris’s campaign has put on since she rose to the top of the Democratic ticket last month.
Biden and Harris had come to Maryland to celebrate an announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services regarding negotiated prices that Medicare will pay for 10 widely-used prescription drugs starting in 2026.
The drug price talks were mandated as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed into law last year after Harris cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate.
The vice president told attendees that she and Biden had “finally addressed the long-standing issue” that had kept prices so high for Medicare users: a ban on negotiating drug prices that was inserted when the Bush administration pushed legislation to create the prescription drug benefit through Congress.
“Two years ago, we gave Medicare the power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for the first time in history, and here is why that matters. It is nearly impossible for a patient to negotiate lower prices by themselves. Just think about that somebody who needs the medication, who may be suffering from a serious illness that they would, by themselves, be able to negotiate against a big drug company to lower that price is virtually impossible,” she said.
In response, the crowd began chanting: “Thank you, Joe!”
After Harris introduced Biden, the president paused before she left the stage to tell them that the vice president will “make one hell of a president,” drawing more cheers in the packed arena.
Turning to the subject at hand, he said he’d waited for this moment “for a long, long time” — since his first term in the Senate in 1973, when he teamed up with then-Idaho Senator Frank Church to push for allowing Medicare to negotiate the price it pays for prescription drugs.
He praised Harris for her tie-breaking vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which received zero support from Republicans in the House and Senate, and said the negotiation authority it created will not harm drug companies’ ability to make profits but it will save taxpayers billions of dollars.
“I’m proud to announce that Medicare has reached agreement with all manufacturers on all 10 drugs selected in the first round of negotiations,” he said, adding later that the lower prices would also result in lower co-pays for seniors in addition to roughly $6 billion per year in taxpayer savings.
“We’re just getting started. Under the law I signed, Medicare can negotiate lower prices for another 15 drugs next year, 15 the following and 20 after that, until every drug is covered. That’s the law. Now, this is another really big deal. It means that Americans can save more money and from life saving medications they need and deserve,” he said.
But Biden also warned that Republicans, including Harris’s opponent Donald Trump, want to roll back the authority he enacted as part of the Trump-endorsed Project 2025.
“They want to repeal Medicare’s power to negotiate drug prices, put big pharma back to charge whatever they want,” he said.
He added: “Let me tell you what our Project 2025 is — beat the hell out of them!”
