 For decades, literally decades, 20, 30, 40 years, members of both political parties have come to the floor of the Senate, come to the floor of the House, and they have bemoaned the high cost of prescription drugs in this country. And they promised the American people that they would lower those outrageous prices. Members have come to the floor, Democrats have come to the floor, and speech after speech has been made. And not only speeches, members of both political parties have put 30-second ads on television when they ran for office, hey, vote for me. I'm going to lower the cost of prescription drugs. So for decades now, members of Congress have been talking about lowering the cost of prescription drugs, and for decades they have failed to deliver. Talk, talk, talk, nothing happens. The cost of prescription drugs goes up. That was Senator Bernie Sanders begging and pleading his colleagues to finally deliver on a promise that they've been making to the American people for decades, and lower the cost of prescription drugs once and for all. In fact, he made it really easy for them. He co-sponsored a bill along with Amy Klobuchar, and if they support this or just don't block it, then that will help them all collectively deliver on something that all Americans would very much appreciate, Democrat or Republican. It doesn't matter. He wants to see the cost of prescription drugs lowered. But can you guess what happened next? Well, of course, they blocked it. As Jake Johnson of Common Dreams explains, Republican Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho blocked Senator Bernie Sanders' attempt Wednesday to force a vote on legislation that would slash prescription drug prices, thwarting the Vermont senator's effort to fast-track the new bill as the pharmaceutical industry rushes to high costs in the new year. Sanders, chair of the Senate Budget Committee, requested unanimous consent to proceed to debate and to vote on the cutting Medicare prescription drug prices in half-act, a measure he introduced earlier Wednesday alongside Senator Amy Klobuchar. If passed, the bill would bring the prices of drugs covered by Medicare into line with what the Department of Veterans Affairs or the Federal Supply Schedule pay for the same medications. According to a 2017 Government Accountability Office study, the VA paid an average of 54 percent less per unit than Medicare, for a sample of hundreds of brand name and generic drugs. But Crapo, a major recipient of pharmaceutical and insurance industry donations, objected to Sanders' request to advance the legislation, claiming it would usher in more bureaucracy. The Idaho Republican is the lead sponsor of a more industry-friendly bill titled The Lower Costs More Cures Act, which advocates a market-based approach to lowering drug prices. Just hilarious. A market-based approach to lowering drug prices. I've got really great news for Senator Crapo. You've won. We have that. We currently have the market-based approach to lowering drug prices. The bad news is that it's not working. In fact, it's been a catastrophic failure. So for him to have this bill that essentially does nothing, it's a joke. This is why nothing gets accomplished, because we have people who are so shamelessly beholden to their donors that they don't care how bad it looks. They don't care how many lives they ruin. And Senator Mike Crapo is absolutely bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical industry. So looking at his record on Open Secrets, just in the 2022 cycle alone, he took nearly $200,000 in PAC money from the pharmaceutical industry, making them one of his top donors this cycle. And of course, they've been a consistent contributor to him throughout the course of his career. So it's not a shock to see that he's doing their bidding. He's completely bought up. They tell him to jump. He asks how high. I mean, the people in Congress, they're essentially just proxies for corporate America. They're the puppets, the puppeteers are the ones who actually fund their campaigns. And, you know, you would think in a rational society, a senator would never dare do something like this, block something that all Americans would benefit from because they would be afraid to face the public. They would be afraid to explain this to their constituents. But we don't live in a functioning democracy. So it's normal. It's very common to have policy outcomes that are almost exclusively beneficial to corporate America and the ruling class. And we've known about this for quite some time. There's a 2014 Princeton University study by Drs. Gillens and Page that I cite all the time on this program. And they looked at policy outcomes. And what they found is that voters, just normal Americans, have a statistically insignificant impact on policy outcomes. But when you look at the preferences of business elites and corporate America, well, what they want more often than not gets codified into law. So when it comes to our preferences versus their preferences, they get what they want. And Bernie Sanders thankfully explained why this is the case. It's the lowest common denominator. It's the corruption. Well, let me tell you why we pay the highest prices in the world. Why people in America die because they can't afford prescription drugs. And the answer has everything to do with a corrupt political system in which over the past 20 years, the pharmaceutical industry has spent over four and a half billion, not million, four and a half billion dollars on lobbying and hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions. Yes, you heard that correctly. Four and a half billion dollars over 20 years on lobbying. And God knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars on campaign contributions. These are campaign contributions which go to Republicans. These are campaign contributions that go to Democrats. And I am talking about many hundreds of members of the House and Senate who receive funding from the pharmaceutical industry. Further, the pharmaceutical industry has over the years mounted an unprecedented lobbying effort in Washington, here in the nation's capital and in states all over the country. And I hope everybody hears this because this is what power is about. This is why you pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Last year alone, the pharmaceutical industry hired more than 1,700 well-paid lobbyists to come to Capitol Hill to protect their interests, including the former congressional leaders of both major political parties. Got that? 1,700 well-paid lobbyists protecting the interests of the pharmaceutical industry. Get out your calculator because what that amounts to is three pharmaceutical industry lobbyists for every member of Congress. And that right there is why prescription drug companies can raise the cost of your medications. And there's not a single thing that you can do about it because they have all of Congress bought and paid for. And they have three lobbyists per member of Congress. How crazy is that? So they have a strong hold on Congress. And that's why there's been so many promises to lower the cost of prescription drugs for decades, but it never happens. That's why we've seen straight up 180s. I mean, Kirsten Sinema in Arizona, even though she was a corporate Democrat and she was running as a centrist, one of her key promises was to lower the cost of prescription drugs. She gets elected and what did she do? She blocks that. She blocks it. I mean, they are so shameless. So it's nice to see at least one member of Congress call this out explicitly and explain this is why you can't have what you want. This is why we're not doing the common sense thing to help you out and save lives. It's because every single person in this goddamn building is fucking bought and paid for by this industry. That's why. And it's not just the pharmaceutical industry. This is a microcosm of a bigger issue. It's it's everything, right? That's why we don't have action on climate change. It's because Congress has been lobbied for decades from the fossil fuel industry. They're bought and paid for with campaign contributions. It's why, you know, we can't have anything. This is why. So, you know, it's really frustrating. And I didn't really expect a different outcome, but still to see time and again, these lawmakers spit in your face and tell you you can't have what everyone else in the developed world has, which is just lower prescription drugs. It's just, you know, it makes me wonder when is the American people finally going to stand up and say, no more, I'm fucking done. I refuse to support these corrupt politicians. I don't know if it's ever going to happen, but, you know, certainly as long as people at least are educated about why things are happening, I think that's a really important start and credit to Bernie Sanders for eloquently explaining why Congress is so dysfunctional and incapable of doing the bare minimum with respect to governing.