THE BATTLE OF TV ads has begun over a bill aimed at lowering drug prices for seniors by allowing Medicare to negotiate the cost of medications.
New Hampshire and particularly Rep. Chis Pappas (D-N.H.) and his First District seat are being targeted by the American Action Network, a conservative advocacy group. The network is spending $5 million on TV and digital ads, including $150,000 targeting Pappas this month. It is also calling residents of the historically-swingy First District about the bill.
Their argument is that if drug prices are lower, drug makers will want to cut costs, perhaps by moving their manufacturing to other parts of the world.
“Our hope is that Congressman Pappas will come to understand the proposal’s serious risks to our health and national security and instead choose a bipartisan path to reduce the cost of prescription drugs,” wrote the group’s spokesman, Calvin Moore, in an email.
Protect Our Care, a liberal advocacy group focused on health care, launched what it described as a “seven-figure effort” on Wednesday, unleashing ads and a campaign to engage activists in support of the drug-price negotiation bill.
That group plans to focus its message on the problem of high drug prices, arguing the issue has support from Republican and Democratic voters.
“Millions of Americans are forced to choose between paying for the medicines they need to live or paying for food or rent, while drug companies make huge profits.” Protect Our Care chair Leslie Dach said in a statement.
“Overwhelming majorities of voters across parties agree that Medicare should have the power to negotiate for lower drug prices for all Americans.”
Legal clinics for veterans
A bill introduced by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) this week aims to help veterans navigate the court system by paying for veterans’ legal clinics, like those run out of law schools. The bill, the Veterans Legal Support Act of 2021, would fund legal clinics to help veterans with matters such as bankruptcy, foreclosure, or even criminal cases.
Unfortunately for New Hampshire veterans, there is no such organization in the state.
Veterans Law Project, a program of the New Hampshire Bar Association and the Veterans Foundation of New Hampshire, shut down last year. UNH’s law school legal clinics only work on landlord-tenant issues, intellectual property, bankruptcy and some criminal cases.
Bipartisan Hassan
In two recent studies, Sen. Maggie Hassan ranked in the top 10 most-bipartisan senators during the last Congress.
Last week, the Lugar Center and Georgetown University’s bipartisanship index ranked Hassan at number 7 in the Senate.
And this week, an index compiled by CQ Roll Call found Hassan voted against the majority of Democrats 17.6% of the time — more often than all but four other senators. Shaheen scored high on the same measure, voting against Democrats 12.1% of the time.
Hassan’s bipartisanship ranking jumped in her third and fourth years in the Senate, compared to her first two years. In the 2017-18 session, Hassan was ranked as the 65th most-bipartisan senator (or the 35th least-bipartisan senator) by the Lugar Center.
It’s not clear if this bipartisan pivot has made her any friends in New Hampshire. Hassan is still the target of criticism on fiscal-conservative grounds for her yes vote on the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan stimulus package. Restive progressives are still upset she voted to keep a $15 minimum wage out of the bill.
