Amid impeachment ad blitz, ad buy from national drug pricing group touts Horsford’s December vote on House bill
Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford is among a number of beneficiaries of a new multi-million dollar ad buy touting Congress members who last-month greenlit a Democratic-backed omnibus bill that seeks to lower prescription drug prices in part by allowing the government to negotiate those prices through Medicare.
Paid for by the advocacy group Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, the digital ads praise Horsford’s vote from December in favor of H.R. 3, a bill spearheaded by Democratic House leaders that become one of several high-profile pieces of legislation in the run-up to the vote to impeach President Donald Trump.
The group did not disclose a specific dollar amount spent on the ads, however, citing concerns they would be outspent by pharmaceutical companies should such information be public.
In addition to allowing price negotiation through Medicare, the bill would also cap out-of-pocket spending for Medicare beneficiaries and seek to financially penalize drug makers that raise prices faster than the rate of inflation.
The ad marks the second such push from Patients For Affordable Drugs Now touting Horsford, among others, with the new ad following a buy last October that followed a similar script. The group has also released a number of other ads praising Republican lawmakers who sided with Democrats on the issue of prescription drug pricing.
Such ad buys come at a key time for swing-district Democrats, who nearly unanimously stuck to the party line in last month’s impeachment vote. Yet, as Trump’s Senate trial remains in limbo, the Trump campaign and Republican Super PACs have spent millions on a continuing ad blitz designed to put pressure on Democrats in vulnerable districts for failing to legislate in favor of pursuing what they call a partisan impeachment process.
That includes ads targeting Horsford’s Democratic colleague, Rep. Susie Lee, whose district voted for Trump in 2016 by a 1-point margin. But a series of digital ads by another health care advocacy group, Protect Our Care, have been boosting Lee since mid-November.
Watch the new ad here.