Hey there, on the afternoon of Sunday, August 7th, Stacey just had seen it was sitting

alone in her office at Vanderbilt University, where she's a professor of health policy,

watching C-SPAN and crying.

The question is on passage of HR 5376 as amended.

I asked for the yeas and nays.

Is there sufficient second?

There appears to be the clerk will call the roll.

The U.S. Senate was voting on the inflation reduction act.

Mrs. Blackburn, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Bond, Mr. Bond.

Which, among other things, lots of other things.

It's going to make it so people on Medicare will pay less for really expensive drugs.

The yeas are 50, the nays are 50.

The Senate being equally divided.

The vice president votes in the affirmative, and the bill as amended is passed.

There are a bunch of drug provisions in this new law.

And the one that's gotten the most attention is probably one that gives Medicare the right

to negotiate the price it pays for certain expensive drugs.

And that doesn't get in for a few years.

But maybe a bigger deal, and sooner, by 2025, nobody on Medicare will have to pay more

than $2,000 a year for prescription drugs, which is a huge deal.

It is the main reason that Stacey Ducicino was crying as she watched the Senate take

that vote, because lots of people pay more than that now, more than a million people

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