WASHINGTON, D.C. — The following statement was issued by David Mitchell, a cancer patient and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, in response to President Biden’s Build Back Better framework released today:
“The lack of provisions to lower drug prices in the Build Back Better framework is a huge failure that will harm millions of Americans who are counting on Democrats and the president to deliver on their promises and provide desperately needed relief. It is an indictment of our entire political system that a handful of members of Congress who are working on behalf of Big Pharma have so far blocked reform.
“On behalf of patients, we demand that congressional Democrats reject this framework until it includes the most popular provision: effective Medicare negotiation to lower drug prices for Americans. This means allowing Medicare to negotiate prices on expensive drugs crushing patients, inflationary caps on price increases in Medicare and the commercial sector, and capping out-of-pocket costs for Medicare beneficiaries.
“Without Medicare negotiation, the Build Back Better framework goes against the will of 90 percent of voters — Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike. It maintains the status quo, leaving millions of Americans paying almost four times what people in other wealthy nations pay for the same brand-name drugs, and facing heartbreaking and life-threatening decisions between paying their bills and picking up their prescriptions.
“Until these provisions are included, this plan does not deliver on the promises made by the president and Democrats and does not provide the relief patients need. It must be rejected.”
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