Pro-pharma Democrats kill bill to lower drug costs — advocates ask: “What did they get for that?”

It was the "ugliest night" the late Rep. Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican, said he had witnessed in two decades in politics. "If we don't, it's only because 's really trying to kill everything and try to convince their lackeys, as they call them in Congress, not to do anything," House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., who Nearly all the lawmakers opposed to the legislation are from areas with a large pharmaceutical presence and have received eye-popping contributions from the industry. RELATED: Moderate Democrats are about to sell out Americans to drug companies Without negotiation, taxpayers and employers would continue to be at the "mercy of the monopoly pricing power," Welch said, citing the example of the recently approved Alzheimer's drug Adulhelm. "You have an industry that gets taxpayer support for research, gets governmental protection — giving it monopoly pricing power — and the government sets up the market," Welch said. Welch, a leading proponent of Medicare negotiation, said it was "political malpractice" to keep the Medicare non-negotiation rule on the books to appease a handful of Democrats backed by Big Pharma's money.