After promising health care execs that Medicare for All was dead, Pelosi's team plans toothless pharma deal

If there's one issue that the Democrats could win votes with, it's limits on pharmaceutical prices, because virtually every American agrees that we're being ripped off by Big Pharma (and that goes double for Obama Democrat voters who switched to being Trump voters in 2016).

But the Democratic establishment doesn't want the Democrats to win, they want Democrats to win without upsetting the donor class, and pharma spends like crazy (I'm looking at you, Other Cory).

Pelosi runs a big organization and it's full of people who have their hearts in the right place on at least one issue, even if they're fatally compromised on other issues. Think of Pelosi health aide Wendell Primus, who hates the pharma industry and its price gouging, but is willing to help kill Medicare for All and replace it with ACA expansion, ensuring that poor Americans are insured by private companies who get to bill the US government virtually unlimited sums in exchange.

But even if Pelosi's staff are good on one issue, that issue will be undermined by someone else in her circle, creating a virtually unbeatable obstacle course for any progressive policy.

Take the pharma deal Pelosi is cooking up: to rein in pharma prices, Pelosi will ask pharma companies to voluntarily enter into a nonbinding arbitration system on pricing. Seriously, that's it: voluntary, nonbinding controls on pricing, versus the vast army of Martin Shkrelis who have already made 2019 one of the worst years for multi-hundred-percent pharma price increases, and it's only been 6 weeks. Read the rest