Chapter 501 - 233: Early Coronation
Harrisburg. The East Wing of the Pennsylvania State Capitol Building.
This was the Vice Governor’s suite of offices.
Compared to the Governor’s offices in the West Wing—always bustling with lobbyists, reporters, and hurried footsteps—this place was unnervingly quiet.
The hallway carpet was thick, muffling all sound. A musty scent hung in the air—the smell of stagnant power.
Aston Monroe sat behind his desk.
On the desk lay only a copy of that day’s Philadelphia Inquirer and a cup of coffee that had gone cold.
Ever since his crushing defeat to John Murphy in the senatorial primary, this once-unbeatable political golden boy of Philadelphia had rapidly fallen from the limelight.
Although he was still the Vice Governor, in the fickle world of politics where everyone sides with the winner, one loss often meant losing your momentum for the next five years.
His allies within the party began to distance themselves, the donors stopped their courtesy calls, and even his own secretary seemed a little less deferential when pouring his coffee.
Monroe looked out the window at the Susquehanna River.
The water was murky, flowing slowly into the distance.
He felt like a piece of driftwood in that river, still moving but having lost all direction.
KNOCK KNOCK.
The knock broke the oppressive silence in the room.
His secretary poked his head in, an odd expression on his face.
"Sir, you have a visitor."
"Who is it?" Monroe asked without turning around. "If it’s some tabloid reporter looking to kick me while I’m down, just say I’m not in."
"It’s not a reporter." The secretary hesitated for a moment. "It’s the Mayor of Pittsburgh, Leo Wallace."
Monroe whipped his swivel chair around.
He wondered if he had heard correctly.
’Leo Wallace?’
’He should be in a Philadelphia courtroom, tearing his hair out over Luigi’s case. What is he doing here?’
"Show him in."
Monroe straightened his tie and sat up straighter.
The door opened, and Leo walked in.
He didn’t have the triumphant swagger of a victor. On the contrary, he looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes—the telltale sign of long-term sleep deprivation.
But he still walked in with a quick pace, projecting an urgency that seemed to pound into the floor with every step.
"Hello, Mr. Vice Governor."
Leo walked up to the desk and, without waiting for an invitation, pulled out a chair and sat down.
Monroe watched him.
"Mayor Wallace." Monroe’s tone was cold and tinged with bitterness. "If you don’t mind my asking, shouldn’t you be in a courtroom in Philadelphia, or on a construction site in Pittsburgh? What brings you here to my office?"
Monroe leaned back, crossing his arms.
"If you’ve come to gloat, you’re too late. The articles mocking me were all published months ago."
"I don’t have time for that."
Leo reached into his jacket, pulled out a document, and tossed it onto Monroe’s desk.
"I’m here to give you a gift."
"A gift?"
Monroe glanced at the document.
The cover had no fancy embellishments, only a single line of bold, black text:
The Pennsylvania Medicine Benefits Transparency and Fairness Bill (Draft).
Monroe frowned.
He picked up the document and opened it to the first page.
As an elite graduate of Yale Law School, he could read legal texts with incredible speed.
The first few pages contained the standard description for establishing a "Non-profit Pharmaceutical Procurement Fund" and looked no different from an ordinary charitable proposal.
But when he turned to the fifth page and saw the core provision, his fingers froze.
The provision was written very clearly:
"...To ensure the efficient and transparent use of public funds, it is hereby stipulated: All health insurance plans operating within the state of Pennsylvania that involve state fiscal appropriations or subsidies (including but not limited to the state employee health insurance plan and the state’s matching portion of Medicaid) must implement a pharmaceutical benefit carve-out policy."
"The procurement and payment of pharmaceuticals for the aforementioned insurance plans may not be handled by insurance companies or their affiliated for-profit pharmacy benefit managers, but must be mandatorily transferred to and managed by a fund certified by the State Government."
Monroe sucked in a sharp breath.
He snapped his head up, his eyes fixed on Leo.
"Do you have any idea what this is?"
Monroe’s voice was filled with disbelief.
"This is robbery."
"You’re robbing the pharmacy benefit managers of their livelihood."
"You’re trying to use the law to forcibly pry this piece of meat from their mouths, and then..."
Monroe glanced at the name of the recommended administrative body at the end of the document—the Citizen Health Mutual Aid Alliance.
"...stuff it into your own pockets?"
"Not my pockets."
Leo corrected.
"It’s going into the pockets of Pennsylvania’s taxpayers."
"By cutting out this middleman, we can reduce the State Government’s annual pharmaceutical spending by at least twenty percent. For a state budget that’s deep in the red, that’s a surplus of hundreds of millions of dollars."
"For the poor who depend on their health insurance to survive, it means access to more and better medicines."
Leo stood up and walked over to Monroe’s side.
"This is a legislative nuke, Aston. And I need someone in Harrisburg to detonate it."
"I need someone to help me push this bill through."
"And in Harrisburg right now, I think you’re the only one who has the ability to do it."
Monroe slammed the document back on the desk.
"You’re insane."
"You want me to push this bill? You want me to antagonize every insurance giant and pharmaceutical representative in Pennsylvania?"