…“crisis of affordability” for prescription drugs, he proposed a novel solution: allow the government to negotiate better deals for critical medications.

Repealing that so-called noninterference provision has been a centerpiece of Democratic campaigns ever since. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, a former head of House Democrats’ campaign arm, recalled that “Medicare shall negotiate drug prices” was one of the six planks in the “Six for ’06” platform that helped the Democrats win control of the House in 2006.

“It would mean that the pharmaceutical industry, which has 1,500 paid lobbyists, the pharmaceutical industry, which made $50 billion in profits last year, the pharmaceutical industry, which pays its executives huge compensation packages, and which is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat this legislation, will have won,”