The Election Is Over. Now Washington Can Prove It Agrees on One Thing.

The votes are counted. When the new Congress is sworn in this January, Democrats will run the House and the Senate. President Trump will still hold the veto pen.

Everyone in Washington is already predicting two years of gridlock. We would like to suggest a place to start proving them wrong: the one issue Republicans and Democrats have agreed on since 1992.

Thirty-four years ago today, on Nov. 4, 1992, President George H.W. Bush signed the 340B drug discount program into law with bipartisan support in Congress. The deal was simple. Drug companies that want their medicines covered by Medicaid sell them at a discount to safety-net hospitals and clinics, so those providers can stretch scarce dollars to care for more patients.

But now this bipartisan program is being threatened by Big Pharma's support for a rebate scheme.

What is the 340B rebate scheme?

On Jan. 1, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Health Resources and Services Administration will let 10 of the world's biggest drug companies stop giving safety-net providers the upfront 340B discount on 21 drugs. AbbVie. Amgen. Astellas. AstraZeneca. Bristol Myers Squibb. Boehringer Ingelheim. GSK. Merck. Pfizer. Teva.

Instead, nonprofit hospitals and community health centers will pay full price, hand over their patients' claims data, and wait for the drug companies to pay them back.

A federal appeals court has described this kind of arrangement as “an interest-free loan from the hospitals to the manufacturers.”

We have a simpler name for it. A wealth transfer.

Out of nonprofit, community-based health care providers. Into the pockets of the wealthiest, most profitable companies in the world.

Who in Washington already opposes 340B rebates?

More people than you think. In both parties.

Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan and Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell lead the 340B Rebate Model Delay Act, which has picked up 17 cosponsors in less than a month. Democrat Doris Matsui and Republican Tracey Mann introduced the PROTECT 340B Act to end the rebate pilot for good. Republican Rep. Jack Bergman introduced a bill to make sure certain safety-net providers never pay more than the 340B price at the time of purchase.

And House Democrats' own cost-of-living health care working group told Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that blocking the rebate model belongs in the first 100 hours of a Democratic majority.

That is not a partisan fight. That is a consensus waiting for someone to act on it.

Why should President Trump want to end it?

This administration has spent the last two years telling Americans it is taking on Big Pharma's prices. It even watered down its most-favored-nation pricing model, narrowing it so it may reach as few as four drugmakers, pushing back its start, and cutting its projected savings. Big Pharma's answer? It sued anyway. In October, the drug industry's top lobbying group went to court to kill the model.

So why would the same administration turn around and hand the same industry an interest-free loan, paid for by safety-net hospitals and community clinics?

It makes no sense for the President's voters. It makes no sense for Secretary Kennedy's promise to stand up to the drug companies. And it makes no sense for patients.

Here is the good news.

HHS does not need an act of Congress to fix this.

HHS dropped the last version of this scheme after a federal judge blocked it. It can drop this one too.

What should Washington's leaders do now?

So here is our ask. President Trump. Vice President Vance. Secretary Kennedy. Leader Schumer. Leader Jeffries.

Show America that you can work together for people, not for the most profitable corporations on earth. Start here. Abandon the rebate scheme before Jan. 1.

Because if you don't, the drug companies will hold the cash and America's safety-net hospitals will hold the IOU. Their patients will pay the interest, and they are the ones who can least afford it.

Sources: The ten approved manufacturers, the 21 drugs, and the January 1, 2027 start date are from HRSA's October 1, 2026 approval of manufacturer plans for the 340B Rebate Model Pilot Program. The “interest-free loan” description is the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit's, as quoted in the hospitals' complaint in American Hospital Association v. Kennedy, No. 1:26-cv-00515-LEW (D. Me., filed Oct. 9, 2026). Bill sponsors and cosponsor counts are from Congress.gov as of November 3, 2026 (H.R. 10770, H.R. 10937, H.R. 10919). The working group recommendation is from the House Democrats' Cost-of-Living Healthcare Working Group memo to Leader Jeffries dated September 1, 2026. The 1992 signing date is for the Veterans Health Care Act of 1992 (Public Law 102-585), which created Section 340B of the Public Health Service Act. PhRMA filed suit against CMS's final GLOBE most-favored-nation model on October 7, 2026 (Politico Pro; Reuters); the final rule's narrowed reach, January 1, 2027 start, and reduced savings estimate are as reported by Reuters and Gibson Dunn (91 Fed. Reg. 62936, Oct. 2, 2026).