No Follies or Funny Things (Can) Happen on the Way to the Senate: Pass BBB and Merrily We (Will) Roll Along (RIP Sondheim).
Welcome to the Week in Review.
1. Thank You!
- On Tuesday, P4ADNow launched new ads thanking six frontline House Democrats for being champions of drug price provisions in the Build Back Better Act. The ads are running in TX-32, MN-02, NJ-03, NH-01, IL-14, and PA-07. In the months leading up to the House passage of the legislation, these representatives signed letters and penned op-edscalling for the inclusion of Medicare negotiation in the reconciliation package. The ads feature Jackie, a cancer patient whose medication, Revlimid, carries a list price of over $20,000 each month. “On behalf of patients all across this country, we thank Reps. Allred, Craig, Kim, Pappas, Underwood, and Wild for fighting to ensure the inclusion of meaningful drug price reforms in the Build Back Better Act,” said P4ADNow founder David Mitchell. — (P4ADNow)
2. New Jersey Patients Can’t Wait
- At a local event with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Pallone, patient advocate Lisa Ann Trainor shared how high drug prices have affected her family and urged her senators to pass the Build Back Better Act with its current drug pricing reforms. “New Jerseyans like me need you to fight for the thousands of us affected by the unaffordable price of our prescription drugs,” Lisa said. “So many New Jerseyans are suffering right now. We don’t have time to wait.” — (InsiderNJ)
3. Congress, We’re Counting On You
- As the Build Back Better Act and its drug pricing provisions await a Senate vote, advocacy groups, patients, editorial boards, and Americansacross the country are united in calling for its swift passage to lower drug prices for patients. The issue is urgent — a new study found that in the years prior to the pandemic, nearly 13 million patients delayed filling or went without prescription medications due to high prices. “There have been times where I could not afford to carry an EpiPen and ended up hospitalized with anaphylactic shock after being exposed to latex,” writesBrenda Dickason, a small business owner and former police detective who lives with asthma and multiple allergies. “As an Arizonan, I am calling on Sen. Sinema to reject Big Pharma’s misinformation and stand firm in her commitment to delivering the drug pricing reforms, as written, in the Build Back Better Act.” — (The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Arizona Daily Star, Star Tribune, The Record-Courier, The Plain Dealer, Urban Institute)