Presented by American Edge Project.

It's Wednesday morning. I'm Olivia Reingold, and this is your Politico Playbook Daily Briefing.

The DSA might start sharpening its pitchforks this morning because details around the second act of President Joe Biden's infrastructure proposal, his massive $1.8 trillion follow-up called

the American Families Plan, are starting to emerge, and we're learning it'll be like

Christmas morning to anyone with kids, and more like a lump of coal for anyone banking on cheaper

health care. That is, unless you're the healthcare industry itself,

then it's also like Christmas morning for you. Biden is set to unveil the American Families

Plan tonight in a state of the union-esque speech during what will be his first and highly

televised appearance before a joint session of Congress.

And leading up to this big moment, there was a lot of chatter that this would be a real blow-up

for health care.

Expansion of Medicaid, lowering the eligibility age for Medicare, and negotiating lower drug

prices, super important, would change a lot of lives.

That can shore up our health care, our infrastructure, our housing.

You have millions of Americans today who cannot afford health care.

What Senator Bernie Sanders and some of his progressive allies, like Representative Primalogynapal,

were gunning for, was a Medicare expansion paid for by proposed negotiations between the federal government

and Big Pharma over drug prices. And a few days ago, their odds were gaining as more Democrats

and even some centrists like Representative Connor Lamb and Jared Golden started to join the

cause, culminating in a series of letters sent straight to the boss asking Biden for things like Medicare to start covering dental, vision, and hearing care, and to lower the program's eligibility to age 60.

That left the White House with a decision. Negotiate drug prices and draw the wrath of the pharmaceutical giants, or expand Medicare and come under attack by the health insurance lobby, or a third choice, which Politico learned late last night is what Biden went with, declined both.

The White House now says lawmakers can expect to hear this in Biden's speech.

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