- President Joe Biden plans to announce at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly that the U.S. will buy another 500 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to distribute globally, doubling his earlier commitment. The latest purchase represents a fraction of the shots that will be necessary to reach Biden’s goal of seeing 70 percent of the globe vaccinated in the next year. The White House said he will press other countries during the summit to step up their vaccine-sharing commitments. (Articles here, here, here, and here)
- Top House Democrats plan to include a proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate some prescription drug prices in their budget reconciliation bill. The move assumes that enough of the four Democratic lawmakers currently opposed to the measure will back down and support it once it’s included in the full package. Democrats are counting on the proposal to generate budgetary savings that could be used to help pay for other health policy priorities. (Article here)
September 22, 2021
D.C. News