On Thursday, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris made their first joint appearance since Biden dropped out of the presidential race. They went to Maryland to announce a major win for their administration! The Biden-Harris administration worked out a deal with drug companies to significantly lower the prices on ten top-selling prescription drugs.

The United States has negotiated down the prices of 10 top-selling prescription drugs used by Medicare by as much as 79%, hoping to save $6 billion in the first year as part of a plan hailed on Thursday by President Joe Biden with the aim to ease anger about high prices ahead of November elections.

Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in 2022, was the first to allow Medicare to negotiate prices for some of the most costly drugs that the program covers for 66 million people. The new prices will go into effect in 2026.

“We finally beat Big Pharma,” Biden said at an event in Largo, Maryland, alongside Vice President Kamala Harris. The administration hopes the savings will ease Americans’ anger about high prices, an issue they frequently say is their top concern headed into the closely contested Nov. 5 presidential election between Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump.

“My entire career, I have worked to hold bad actors accountable and lower the cost of prescription drugs,” Harris said. “Medicare can use that (collective bargaining) power to go toe-to-toe with Big Pharma and negotiate lower drug prices.”

[From Reuters]

It’s a major win for this administration and it’s a tangible win which will affect millions of Americans. It was important for Pres. Biden and VP Harris to announce it together too – Harris and her campaign will get a chunk of the credit. Speaking of, at the event, Biden was extremely enthusiastic about his vice president’s candidacy, telling the crowd: “I have an incredible partner in the progress we made. She’s going to make one hell of a president.” VP Harris told the crowd: “There’s a lot of love in this room for our president. Few leaders in our nation have done more, on so many issues, including to expand access to affordable healthcare, than Joe Biden.”

Pres. Biden has been in a good mood since he withdrew from the race. It’s loosened him up and he made several digs at Donald Trump at this event. He said, at one point: “The guy we’re running against, what’s his name? Donald Dump? Or Donald Whatever?” He also said: “Let me tell you what our Project 2025 is: beat the hell out of them!”

So what happens now when it comes to the actual campaign and election? President Biden has said that he wants to campaign for Kamala, and I suspect he will do so after the convention. My guess is that they’ll make several stops in Pennsylvania (Biden was born in Scranton) and maybe even go to some of the Rust Belt swing states, the same states that the Biden-Harris campaign prioritized so heavily in the 2020 election.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.