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President Joe Biden visited a heavily Republican rural stronghold in Virginia on Thursday to join Representative Abigail Spanberger, D-7th, to push Congress to take action on proposals to reduce prescription drug prices.
He traveled to Germanna Community College in Culpepper, Va., to speak on work his administration has done to lower healthcare costs, specifically prescription drugs. He was also joined by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
“In America, we pay the highest prescription drug prices of any … developed nation in the world,” Biden said. “Everyone has less money in their pockets today because of high drug prices, drug costs and health insurance and it’s more expensive for everyone.
“The idea that you can charge whatever you want is just not going to happen.”
Biden cited examples of families not filling prescriptions given to them by doctors simply because they can’t afford them.
“This is the United States of America, for God’s sake. That’s just wrong. It’s simply wrong.”
Biden said he could solve the problem “with the stroke of a pen” if Congress would adopt his proposals.
“We just need to get it through the U.S. Senate, and we’re close,” he said.
The president acknowledged that Americans are frustrated with inflation and rising prices on consumer products, especially gasoline.
“I’m going to work like the devil to bring gas prices down,” he said.
“I’m going to work like the devil to bring gas prices down,” Biden said Thursday in Culpeper, Virginia, addressing America's record-high inflation rate https://t.co/jDnFNwbSCP pic.twitter.com/xJOv5TlqyE
— Bloomberg Originals (@bbgoriginals) February 10, 2022
“Inflation is up. It’s up. And (I’m) coming from a family (that), when the price of gas went up, you felt it in the household. You knew what it was like. It matters,” Biden said in his remarks. “But the fact is that if we are able to do the things I’m talking about here, it’ll bring down the costs for average families.”
He said the Build Back Better legislation will bring down prescription costs, including placing a $35 cap on monthly insulin prescriptions. Additionally, pharmaceutical companies that increase drug prices beyond the rate of inflation would face an increased excise tax.
Since December, negotiations on the legislation have been at a standstill, and the administration recently acknowledged the package might have to be split into smaller chunks to pass.
“I think we can break the package up, get as much as we can now and come back and fight for the rest later,” the president said during a late-January press conference.
