It’s easy to see when someone does something that benefits us, but sometimes we neglect to take note of those who tried to stop that good stuff from happening.
That’s glaringly apparent when we look at the U.S. Congress where, for the most part, Democrats promote policies that help people, while Republicans oppose them because they’re counterproductive to their pro-rich, anti-poor-and-middle-class agenda.
President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill passed the House by a vote of 228-206, but it would’ve died without the help of some Republicans. Six Democrats voted against the bill, but 13 Republicans backed it, allowing the measure to make the 218-vote threshold needed for passage.
Still, 200 Republicans voted against it. The tally for Senate approval was 69-30.
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act passed 220-207 in the House and 51-50 in the Senate (with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote), both times along party lines.
This is where I often like to point out the vote of my congressman/Trump bootlicker Mike Kelly. As expected, he opposed both bills.
The question now is: Will Democrats be able to craft effective messaging on the Republican efforts to styme things that benefit both individuals and their communities? Will GOP cries of “socialism,” “socialist Democrats,” “extremist Democrats,” and whatever else they can think of be seen by enough people as so much Right-wing bullshit.
I don’t know the answer to those questions, but I do know that it never hurts to show the various constituencies the real consequences of their elected officials’ votes.
So, let’s look at just a couple of examples from recent news stories, and remember, if your representative or senator voted no, he was saying that he didn’t want any of this to happen.
The infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) have combined to provide my state of Pennsylvania with $14.8 billion in public infrastructure and clean energy projects, according to a story on the Keystone Newsroom website.
This includes more than $10 billion in transportation investments – such as roads, bridges, public transit, ports, and airports; nearly $800 million in grants and rebates for the deployment of clean energy, clean buildings, and clean manufacturing; and $650 million to provide clean water across the state and improve water infrastructure, including more than $240 million for lead pipe and service line replacement (think about preventing what happened in Flint, MI).
There are infrastructure projects going on all over the state, and they’ve led to the creation of thousands of jobs – no thanks to guys like Kelly.
All I can say is that if any Republican-controlled state isn’t interested in taking advantage of this funding to help their citizens (remember the hesitance by some of them to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act), then just send it over to my state. Our Democratic governor will be glad to take it.
You can read the Keystone store here.
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David Mitchell paid $16,525 last year for Pomalyst, which he uses to treat his multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. Under the IRA, he only has to pay $3,308 this year – a savings of more than $13,000, according to a story on the Kaiser Family Foundation website.
That’s because the IRA caps yearly out-of-pocket spending on brand-name drugs for Medicare beneficiaries at about $3,500. It’ll drop to $2,000 in 2025. About 1.3 million Medicare patients paid more than $3,500 a year for drugs in 2020, KFF said.
Mitchell founded Patients for Affordable Drugs in 2016, which was instrumental in getting drug price reforms in the IRA. The KKF report said, “The law represents the most significant overhaul for the U.S. drug marketplace in decades.”
It described the legislation as “a grab bag of measures intended to give Medicare patients immediate relief and, in the long term, to impose government controls on what pharmaceutical companies charge for their products.”
The law establishes that the federal government can negotiate with pharmaceutical companies on the price of some Medicare drugs. Can you believe they weren’t allowed to do that before?
The process will start with 10 drugs whose new prices will go into effect in 2026. The government will negotiate an additional 15 drugs for 2027, another 15 for 2028, and 20 more each year after that.
Not surprisingly, some drug companies are suing to avoid having to negotiate these prices. Why wouldn’t they when you consider that patients in the United States sometimes pay more than 10 times as much for drugs as people in other countries, KFF reported.
The law also provides free vaccines, a $35-a-month-insulin cap, and federal subsidies to patients earning up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level, and it requires drugmakers to pay the government rebates for medicines whose prices rise faster than inflation.
Here’s something else that’s interesting: The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the legislation will save the federal government $237 billion over 10 years.
Now, why in the world would GOPers like Kelly be against something that’s so beneficial to the senior citizens they represent and can save the government money to boot? Well, I can’t read minds, but in Kelly’s case he’s received more than $290,000 in campaign contributions from drug companies during his career, according to KFF. I’m just saying.
Here’s something I don’t have to read minds to know: when some members of Congress seek your vote this November, and they talk about all the good things they’ve done for senior citizens, you might want to check who voted to deny this important help to seniors throughout the country.
For a lot of them, those pictures of them standing with a bunch of grey-haired folks are nothing more than a photo-op.
Can you find the phony in the picture? I can.
You can read the KFF story here.
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How well can the Democrats pound home this and other GOP hypocrisy? They’ve got work to do. KFF polling showed that just 25 percent of adults were aware the IRA includes provisions on drug prices.
In the last three elections in my congressional district, Kelly has run against candidates with imbecilic messaging, and at this point the latest one doesn’t look so hot either.
Average Americans have to understand that it’s the Democrats who have their backs, and it’s the Republicans who’re putting a knife in them.
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