Key Points

  • President Joe Biden said the federal Medicare program should negotiate prices for at least 50 prescription drugs each year, up from the current target of 20 medicines.
  • That proposal is one of several new health-care policy plans Biden will outline during his State of the Union address Thursday.
  • But the fate of his new proposals will be in the hands of a divided Congress, making it highly uncertain whether they will pass into law.
  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Or we could just readdress healthcare since in 2008 we got a more conservative version of the Republican’s plan and then promptly forgot about ever improving it

    We need actual progressives to get shit done, Biden and other “moderates” just won’t even try, and want us to be happy for crumbs.

    • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      Biden could be spontaneously replaced with Mao Zedong and that still wouldn’t suddenly make a Congress with a Republican House start passing laws.

    • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Healthcare reform is passed by Congress, not the president. So first you need 50, or better yet 60, Senators who are interested in getting it done.

          • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            From 2007 to 2011 Democrats controlled both the house and the senate. Obama was president from 2008-2012.

            Democrats squandered it.

            • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Democrats only had a Senate supermajority for 72 days.

              Furthermore, a supermajority of exactly 60 votes only allows Democrats to pass something that 100% of them support. And Lieberman did not support anything more far reaching than the ACA, such as a public option.

                • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  What’s your narrative? Democrats had control of both the Senate and the house with a Democrat president for years and somehow it’s still Republicans fault they did basically fuck all with it?

              • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                Doesn’t change the fact. Democrats had control of both the Senate and the house. They squandered it.

                  • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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                    8 months ago

                    And if that’s not sufficient evidence to believe either our Democracy is completely broken or Democrats are corrupt or incompetent then you must be someone who’s continuing to benefit from all of this while quality of life deteriorates for the rest of us.

            • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              They had that? When did we have a progressive president for 2 terms, a Congress and a Senate that was all progressive. It hasn’t happened in my life

              • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                Democrats had a majority in the Senate and the house for four years. If you’re acknowledging that establishment Democrats are corrupt pieces of shit then I agree with you but it seems like you’re trying to avoid acknowledging that fact.

    • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      “Actual progressives” can’t get shit done because they can’t get elected.

      • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Sometimes they get elected, but the system is so filled with corruption that it seems those progressive values are quickly abandoned. Justice Dems are, sadly, often good examples of this.

        We have to end the legalized bribery and get money out of politics before any true progressive agenda can be implemented.

      • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        “Actual progressives” can’t get shit done because they can’t get elected.

        But then the people who won’t vote for progressives browbeat progressives into voting for their pro-corporate trash candidates. Or scream and cry when their pro-corporate trash candidate loses in the general.