Senator Bernie Sanders Seated Alone on the Steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington
The photo is real, and so is the 99-1 vote. The story being attached to it online needs one correction.
On August 7, 2022, the Senate held an overnight "vote-a-rama" on the Inflation Reduction Act. A vote-a-rama is a marathon of back-to-back amendment votes that happens before final passage of a budget reconciliation bill, and this one ran through the night and into the next day. During that session, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was photographed sitting alone on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington. The image quickly became one of the most shared political photos of the year, with people reading everything from defeat to defiance into it.
That same night, Sanders offered an amendment to widen and speed up Medicare drug-price negotiation. It failed 99-1, with Sanders as the only yes vote. Several of his other amendments also failed by near-unanimous margins. Democrats who supported the underlying bill voted against changes that could have upset the narrow deal holding it together, and Republicans opposed the bill as a whole. The result was a string of lopsided votes with one senator standing apart.
The viral version of the post says the amendment would have "cut drug prices by 50%." That wording is not documented in the record. The graphic now being shared makes it look like Sanders proposed a flat 50% price cut and every other senator voted against it. What the amendment actually did was expand and accelerate Medicare's power to negotiate prices. That is a real policy difference, and it matters for anyone trying to understand what the Senate rejected.
Sanders also pushed back on the idea that the photo showed him sulking. He said he was "just sitting there trying to keep warm, trying to pay attention to what was going on." WESA reported his comments on August 9, 2022, and Truthout also covered the night's votes. His explanation got far less attention than the photo itself.
The bill itself passed the Senate 51-50 later that day, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. President Biden signed it on August 16, 2022. It included a narrower version of Medicare drug-price negotiation than Sanders wanted, phased in over several years and limited to a small number of drugs at first. The first negotiated prices, on 10 drugs, took effect in January 2026. So while the Sanders amendment failed, Medicare negotiation did become law in a more limited form.
So why is the photo everywhere again? The image went viral once more in 2026 on X and Threads, carrying the same caption as before. Pages picking it up now are mostly resharing that version, which is why the 50% claim keeps traveling with it. Old political photos often come back this way, stripped of their date and paired with a simpler story than the one that actually happened.
The accurate version is still a striking one. A real photo, a real 99-1 vote, a real policy fight over drug prices, and a senator who says he was simply cold and paying attention to the votes going on inside.
Do you think Medicare should be allowed to negotiate prices on more drugs? YES OR NO?
