California voters rejected a closely watched ballot initiative aimed at capping how much most state-funded health insurance programs pay for prescription drugs, a possible bellwether of the lack of political appetite for more widespread policies to tackle high drug prices.
State agencies would have been barred from paying more than the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs does for prescription drugs. VA gets at least a 24 percent discount off the average manufacturer’s price of a drug and is insulated against price hikes larger than inflation.
Proposition 61 was losing with just 46 percent of the vote Wednesday morning, with more than 90 percent of precincts reporting.
The ballot measure was narrowly constructed and would have applied to an estimated 4.4 million people. Still, it had attracted national attention and $109 million in opposition funding, led by the pharmaceutical industry.
It was, in many ways, a test of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) sway and of the viability of a key piece of his agenda, which has involved repeated attacks on the pharmaceutical industry over drug pricing. He appeared at last-minute rallies in Sacramento and Los Angeles on Monday to support the measure, called Proposition 61.
HENRY KOTULA 