White House fires back on prescription drugs, accuses McConnell of supporting ‘welfare’ for Big Pharma

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EXCLUSIVE: The White House is firing back at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s criticisms of Democrats’ spending bill – specifically with regard to prescription drugs – accusing him of supporting "welfare for big drug companies," while maintaining that President Biden is committed to middle-class families and slashing the deficit.

The White House’s comments came after McConnell, R-Ky., spoke on the Senate floor Monday, criticizing Democrats’ reconciliation plan that would allow Medicare to regulate prescription drug prices.

McConnell said the Biden administration and congressional Democrats "want to put socialist price controls between American innovators and new cures for debilitating diseases." 

In response, White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates on Tuesday told Fox News that McConnell "is resorting to talking points that Big Pharma is spending millions to put on the airwaves in opposition to the President’s anti-inflation plan, which would slash the deficit and finally empower Medicare to negotiate down the exorbitant costs of prescription drugs that have driven so many American families into bankruptcy."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says Democrats' reconciliation plan will negatively impact the country, while President Biden urges Congress to pass the bill.  (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite  |  Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

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"The American people are forced to pay two to three times what citizens of other countries do for these drugs, and for far too long Medicare has been blocked by law from using their leverage to save consumers and taxpayers money – welfare for big drug companies that the industry lobbied for and that Sen. McConnell has supported for nearly two decades," Bates said.

Bates added: "When it comes to choosing between the bottom lines of middle class families or special interests that are price gouging hardworking people to pad record profits, the President knows exactly where he stands."

With regard to prescription drugs in the reconciliation package, Democrats are seeking to give Medicare the power to negotiate a better deal on some highest-cost drugs. Right now, Medicare is prohibited from negotiating drug prices.

The legislation would also require rebates from drug companies that increase prices faster than inflation, and impose out-of-pocket caps for beneficiaries to $2,000 per year. An official said that provision would give Americans "the financial security of knowing their costs at the pharmacy are capped." 

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, Nov. 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Democrats also say the legislation would help to reduce the deficit.

But McConnell and Republicans are warning that the bill wages "war" on America’s medical innovation sector.

"Washington Democrats are working right now to find ways to put more bureaucracy between American patients and the treatments they rely on," McConnell said in his floor speech Monday. "They want to put socialist price controls between American innovators and new cures for debilitating diseases."

McConnell warned that with "one-party Democratic control of government, they just might get away with it." 

McConnell also stressed that the provisions would have "hugely, hugely negative consequences" for the country.

"The American people know that government can’t magically make things cost less by passing laws saying things should cost less," McConnell said, warning that "the invoice will be delivered to the American people who are living with actual health challenges."

"The price of bigger government will be fewer lifesaving cures, less innovation in the future," McConnell added, saying the legislation would ultimately shrink the pipeline for new therapeutics for patients with chronic conditions.

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"Prescription drugs with socialism would have devastating and compounding effects," he said.

Meanwhile, Democrats had hoped to pass a sweeping package to tout during the midterms, but in light of recent inflation numbers, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., last week officially rejected efforts to raise taxes or pass energy and climate policies in the reconciliation package. 

Sen. Joe Manchin has criticized Democrats' climate change policies. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Manchin, instead, said he will only support a bill that includes a provision to lower prescription drug prices and a two-year extension of subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. 

This leaves Democrats, in the 50-50 Senate, with just provisions on prescription drugs and extending the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in their legislation.

Democrats are hoping to pass the bill using the Senate's reconciliation process to get around the 60-vote filibuster threshold. That will give them a much-needed win to take to voters before members go home to campaign in August ahead of November's midterm elections, even if it is a very far cry from the $3 trillion-plus bill they initially wanted to pass last year. 

Fox News' Tyler Olson and Jason Donner contributed to this report.