“Catherine Cortez Masto knows working families deserve better. That’s why she worked with both parties to help lower Nevadans’ costs. Lower costs for our health-care premiums and prescription drugs.”
— Ad from Majority Forward, a political advocacy group supporting Senate Democrats, Dec. 8, 2021
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Blink and you’ll miss it: This ad takes a sudden turn into deceptive territory between the second and third sentences.
The 30-second spot is bankrolled by Majority Forward, a political advocacy group aligned with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) that is not required to disclose its donors.
Our beef is simple: The ad conflates two separate bills anchoring President Biden’s agenda. One has passed; the other hasn’t. One was bipartisan; the other has no Republican support.
The Facts
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) is up for reelection next year in a state Biden won by two percentage points in 2020.
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During the campaign, Biden promised to increase spending on several infrastructure and social programs. Once he took office, Democrats split his agenda largely into two bills. The theory was that an infrastructure bill could get Republican votes but that other items on the Democrats’ wish list would face an uphill climb in Congress.
The first piece was the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $550 billion plan to upgrade roads, bridges, airports, water pipes, broadband and other hard infrastructure. This legislation earned Republican votes in both houses of Congress and became law last month. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voted in favor.
The second piece, Build Back Better, is a $2 trillion plan to fund climate programs, universal pre-K, tax credits for families with children and other policies. It passed the House last month on a 220-to-213 vote, with no GOP support, and is pending in the Senate.
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As the ad narrator says Cortez Masto “worked with both parties to help lower Nevadans’ costs,” a headline from Nov. 10 in the Las Vegas Sun flashes by: “Bipartisan infrastructure bill’s passage is a victory for Nevadans.” She voted for the bill, and it passed with bipartisan support. No problems up to here.
The next line in the ad is, “Lower costs for our health-care premiums and prescription drugs.”
Huh? That’s the other bill, Build Back Better. The one that hasn’t passed yet in the Senate.
“The BBBA [Build Back Better Act] includes several provisions that would lower prescription drug costs for people with Medicare and private insurance and reduce drug spending by the federal government and private payers,” according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. “The provisions would allow the federal government to negotiate prices for some high-cost drugs covered under Medicare; require inflation rebates to limit annual increases in drug prices in Medicare and private insurance; cap out-of-pocket spending for Medicare Part D enrollees along with other Part D benefit changes; limit monthly co-pays for insulin to $35 for people with Medicare and private insurance; improve coverage of adult vaccines in Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP; and repeal the Trump Administration’s drug rebate rule.”
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The legislation also would make more than 2 million uninsured adults with incomes below the poverty line eligible for tax credits that would allow them to afford health insurance coverage in the marketplaces set up by the Affordable Care Act, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Viewers easily could take away from the ad that Cortez Masto’s vote for the infrastructure bill will “lower costs for our health care premiums and prescription drugs,” since the narrator makes no effort to distinguish the bills as he segues from one to the other.
What’s more, Majority Forward knows how to cut ads that make the difference clear in 30 seconds of airtime.
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See this script for a Majority Forward ad running on behalf of Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.): “Maggie Hassan got it done, passing the bipartisan infrastructure deal to rebuild New Hampshire’s roads and bridges and bring manufacturing supply chains back to America. That means less dependence on foreign companies and lower prices for families. Now, Maggie Hassan is working to cut taxes for the middle class, give Medicare the power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices and reduce health insurance premiums.”
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No conflation there. Hassan did X. Now she’s doing Y.
JB Poersch, who runs Majority Forward, said that there was no intention to deceive viewers and that different people worked on the Nevada and New Hampshire ads.
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“The ad is an overarching look at Catherine Cortez Masto’s work to lower costs for Nevadans,” he said in a statement. “Sen. Cortez Masto supported the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which will lower costs for utilities, Internet service, and will bring lower costs through investments in roads and bridges. And she worked with both parties to lower prescription drug prices, co-sponsoring the bipartisan Know the Lowest Price Act, which became law in 2018. And her vote for the American Rescue Plan will lead to more affordable health care coverage.”
We reached out to Cortez Masto’s campaign to ask what it thought of the ad and received no response.
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Experts say the Build Back Better Act’s health-care provisions undoubtedly would reduce drug prices, especially by allowing the federal government to negotiate the cost of high-price drugs covered by Medicare.
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In response to our questions, Majority Forward pointed out that Cortez Masto and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) sponsored a bill to allow the government to “negotiate with drug companies for price discounts for the Medicare Prescription Drug Program.” (It hasn’t passed.)
On the other hand, it’s unclear whether the Know the Lowest Price Act, which Cortez Masto co-sponsored and was signed by President Donald Trump in 2018, has made a dent.
The law allows pharmacists to tell customers about instances in which they could save money by paying for medication out of pocket rather than through an insurance plan. A 2018 white paper from researchers at the University of Southern California found that customers on average overpaid $7.69 per claim, using data covering nearly one-quarter of filled prescriptions during the first half of 2013.
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“While average overpayments were relatively small on a per-claim basis ($7.69 on average), the popularity of the drugs with overpayments means that the total dollar amount associated with the practice was significant,” the white paper says. “In our data set alone, we estimated that total overpayments were worth over $135 million in 2013, or $10.51 per member per year.”
Juliette Cubanski, KFF’s deputy director of the program on Medicare policy, said this law “certainly could help in some cases” but was “not likely to move the needle” overall.
“The Know the Lowest Price Act basically removed or prohibited the so-called gag clauses in contracts between pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers that prevented pharmacists from telling patients when they might be able to get a lower price on the medication by paying the cash price,” she said. “That’s not likely to have done anything to actually lower drug prices. We don’t have data to suggest how many people might have benefited from this legislation.”
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KFF separately found that the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which Biden signed in March, would extend health-care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act to 3.7 million people and that “the average savings under the ARPA subsidies will be $70 per month for current individual market purchasers.” These provisions last two years.
A footnote in the Cortez Masto ad sources the line about “lower costs for our health care premiums and prescription drugs” to “AARP, 9/14/21.” When we inquired about this, Majority Forward sent a link to an AARP blog post that talks about … lowering health-care costs by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices.
The Pinocchio Test
We wavered between Two and Three Pinocchios because of the confused picture in the Nevada ad. Whether or not Majority Forward intended to deceive viewers, the effect is the same. Viewers easily could take away from this ad that Cortez Masto’s vote on the infrastructure bill lowers prescription drug costs and health-care premiums.
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Neither of those policies is in the infrastructure law. They’re included in a separate bill that hasn’t been enacted: Build Back Better.
Majority Forward says the ad was referencing a law Cortez Masto co-sponsored, the Know the Lowest Price Act, but no available evidence shows it has had an effect in lowering drug prices. The group says the American Rescue Plan, which the senator supported, lowered health-care premiums. Experts agree on that score.
We suggest Majority Forward promote the New Hampshire admakers to a supervisory role. In the meantime, this ad earns Two Pinocchios.
Two Pinocchios
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