For the fourth week, progressives protested fellow Democrat Scott Peters, rallying at noon Thursday outside the La Jolla offices of the five-term congressman.
Their beef: He doesn’t completely back President Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda. Peters has issues with letting Medicare negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices.
Some 20 members of local Indivisible chapters held signs, chanted and walked up and down the sidewalk. Peters wasn’t present and nobody from his office met the protesters.
Tama Becker-Varano (center) of Change Begins With Me leads the protest. Photo by Chris Stone 
A protester holds a sign showing pharmaceutical donations to Rep. Scott Peters. Photo by Chris Stone 
Twenty protesters urge Rep. Scott Peters to support the Build Back Better bill. Photo by Chris Stone 
John Mattes, president of Hillcrest Indivisible, speaks to protesters. Photo by Chris Stone 
Security guards keep protesters on the sidewalk near Rep. Scott Peter’s office. Photo by Chris Stone
John Mattes, president of Hillcrest Indivisible, called it “embarrassing that Scott Peters thinks he can fool citizens here in San Diego.”
“They all know that the drug prices are too high,” he said. “They all know that Big Pharma is profiting. They all know that Scott Peters has pocketed Big Pharma money, and that is why he stands with Big Pharma and not the people.”
Peters defended his opposition to the drug pricing proposal, HR 3, and offered his own alternative — the Reduced Costs and Continued Cures Act.
“Our proposal would, for the first time, limit the out-of-pocket drug expenses of any senior to a maximum of $3,100 per year, and for lower-income seniors, $1,200,” he wrote Times of San Diego. “It would cap insulin expenses at $50 per month.”
He said his plan is to “lower drug prices today — just like Democrats have long proposed — while we preserve the ability of American scientists to invent the cures for tomorrow. We have to do both.”
On Friday, a spokeswoman for Peters said: “It’s not accurate to say that Rep. Peters does not support allowing Medicare to negotiate” and noted his original Sept. 14 press release.
In the opinion piece, he added: “I am confident that we will come together at the end of this to make a historic investment in our future.”
But Mattes, who once led local efforts to get Sen. Bernie Sanders elected president, said Peters hides behind smoke and mirrors about innovation — and endangers the Biden agenda.
Mattes said Peters is standing there by himself “because the majority of the American people and everyone in the Biden Administration are standing for lowering drug prices. He stands to keep the drug prices the highest in the Western World,” Mattes said.
In a virtual Town Hall on Tuesday, Peters defended his opposition.
“I want to set the record straight about that because I’ve heard some pretty wild claims about where I am on this,” he began about 12 minutes into the Zoom session. “The reason I can’t support HR3 is because it puts our ability to find future cures at risk.”
He said the bill proposes to have the government set a price, then charge a 95% excise tax against companies that refuse to accept that price.
“That’s not a negotiation,” he said. “That’s pricing. An there’s very little incentive for an investor to put money into drug development if there’s no ability to achieve a return on that investment.”
Noting that drug development is a partnership between the public and private sectors, Peters said taxpayers invest over $40 billion in the National Institutes of Health each year to fuel medical research.
“And you know that that’s happened in San Diego, where you see the Salk Institute, Scripps Research, UCSD and Sanford Burnham Prebys, La Jolla Immunology — all using that money to do basic scientific research. … And there’s no bigger advocate for the NIH in Congress than I am,” he said.
University City’s Tama Becker-Varano of Change Begins With Me, Indivisible, in the 52nd Congressional District, noted Peters being a top receiver of pharmaceutical funding.
“It was a bill that was already agreed upon as part of the Build Back Better bill,” she said. “At the 11th hour, Scott Peters came up with an alternative bill that has less of a savings to millions of Americans.”
Because his plan doesn’t include negotiations for Medicare Part D or price matching with other nations, she said, the $3.5 trillion package is hobbled.
“It doesn’t work if you get less money out of Scott Peters’ bill vs. HR3, which is supported by 90% of Americans,” Becker-Varano said after the 45-minute rally.
“He is a Democrat in a solid blue district in a solid blue state, and it’s unacceptable for him to be the only Democrat to vote no with Republicans in the Budget Committee on the Build Back Better bill.”
She doubts what Peters says about his stance not being due to pharmaceutical donations.
“We don’t believe that it will stifle innovation,” Becker-Varano said. “The amount of money that they have spent on advertising is greater than the amount they have spent on R&D.”
Peters’ office Friday also disputed that contention, citing figures at statista.com and researchamerica.org. The Peters spokeswoman said the industry spent $6.85 billion on ads and $102 billion in R&D over a recent period of years .
Protest organizers said they’ll continue protesting Tuesdays and Thursdays until Build Back Better has passed.
Updated at 5 p.m. Oct. 15, 2021
