Maine Beacon – 3/5/20

At polls across Maine on Tuesday, hundreds of voters spoke with health care advocates and signed pledge cards calling on Sen. Susan Collins to do more to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Many Mainers punctuated their message by sharing how much they pay each month for their prescriptions, often totaling thousands of dollars.

Stat News – 3/5/20

Progressive Democrats are pushing to constrain how much drug makers can charge for a coronavirus vaccine.

A group of lawmakers held a press conference Thursday to pressure the Trump administration to impose price controls on any coronavirus-related treatment, and to call on their colleagues to reconsider some of the ambitious drug pricing legislation they have put forward this Congress. Their platform goes far beyond the Medicare negotiation legislation from Speaker Nancy Pelosi that passed the House in December; they instead highlighted a bill, among others, that would create an independent committee to set the price for any drug created using federal research.

The Hill – 1/16/20

The health insurance industry is donating big to Democrats even amid criticism of the industry and growing calls for “Medicare for All” from the progressive wing of the party.