"If you try to confront them head-on in the market, they'll crush you with money."
"You don't have that kind of money."
"So, you can't fight them like a businessman."
"You have to fight them like a politician."
"You have to use administrative power and legislation to forcibly bend the market's rules. It's the only way you'll stand a chance against them."
"But, Mr. President,"
Leo asked.
"The pharmacy benefit managers are so powerful. They're bound to have people in Washington and the State Assembly. If I go after their profits directly, is that even legal?"
"Legal?"
Roosevelt laughed.
"The winds have shifted, Leo."
"Look at Washington. The government just signed the Inflation Reduction Act."
"There's a historic provision in it: Medicare finally gained the power to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies."
"This power is still very limited, of course—only at the federal level and only for a few drugs."
"But it opened a legal precedent."
