How Nancy Pelosi almost killed drug pricing reform — a gamble that expanded Democrats’ final deal

How Nancy Pelosi almost killed drug pricing reform — a gamble that expanded Democrats’ final deal

Source: 
Stat
snippet: 

The White House stunned health care experts last month when it declared it was abandoning its efforts to reform drug pricing in the major domestic spending package moving through Congress, a seeming death knell for what had long been a major priority for Democrats.

But unlike earlier in the negotiations, moderate Democrats weren’t the holdouts.

This time, it was Speaker Nancy Pelosi who dealt the blow, late the night before, to the latest deal on offer, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. It was her behind-the-scenes opposition, which has not been previously reported, that prompted the White House to declare the issue dead — a surprising role for Pelosi, given her decades of long support for sweeping efforts to lower drug prices.