Sen. Elizabeth Warren is leading the charge to defeat a medical research bill she says is a big giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry covered by a "tiny fig leaf of funding" for actual research and other health spending. Warren, who was joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders in opposing the bill, called on Democrats Monday to stand up for the American people against the corporate lobbyists who have swarmed Capitol Hill to shape the legislation.
Warren supports some aspects of the bill, known as the 21st Century Cures Act, which includes a bipartisan mental health initiative and limited funding for things like cancer research ($4.8 billion over a decade to the National Institutes of Health) and drug prevention to address opioid addiction ($1 billion in state grants).
But she ultimately blasted Republicans for "trying to buy off Democratic votes, one-by-one, by tacking on good, bipartisan proposals that senators in both parties have worked on, in good faith, for years."
I cannot vote for this bill. I will fight it because I know the difference between compromise and extortion.
Compromise is putting together common-sense health proposals supported by Democrats, by Republicans, and by most of the American people, and passing them into law. Extortion is holding those exact same proposals hostage unless everyone agrees to special favors for campaign donors and giveaways to the richest drug companies in the world.
Compromise is when Senators - Democrats and Republicans - find the way forward on issues that matter to their constituents. Extortion is telling those same senators to forget what your constituents want - nothing to deal with the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs and nothing to increase medical research. Instead, every important, common-sense, bipartisan bill on mental health, genetic privacy, opioid addiction, foster care, and anything else will die today - unless Democrats agree to make it easier for giant drug companies to commit fraud, give out kickbacks, and put patients’ lives at risk. This demand is enough to make me gag.
GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell has called the legislation a lame-duck priority for Republicans. The battle Warren is waging could ultimately serve as a test case for how effective Democrats will be at mounting an opposition to the GOP-controlled Congress.