I'm not sure this is a tradeoff that most Vermonters would accept. Moreover, drugs are increasingly used as a substitute for surgery and other medical procedures. Although the price of some drugs is rising, the extra expenditure on drugs is due more to their increasing use as a medical treatment than to higher prices. The only way to stop the increase is to stop using new drugs and return to surgery or older, less efficacious drugs. Its not a choice I'd be willing to accept, especially if the new drug, however expensive, would benefit me or someone close to me.
Drugs are expensive for a small group of people, most of whom are seniors.
Although most seniors' medical bills are covered by Medicare, that's not true for prescription drugs. When the Medicare system was designed 30 years ago, drugs were not included in the benefit package because there weren't that many that worked, and those that did work were not very expensive. Neither of those conditions is true today. Providing a prescription-drug benefit to the Medicare program is one national solution, but it is a costly one. Medicare will be bankrupt in a decade, so any plan to expand coverage to include drugs without the means to pay for it is financially risky.