I’m Janet Bacon and I’m from Happy Valley, Oregon. I have been a retiree for the last 20 years and a Medicare beneficiary for the last 12 years. In order to stay my healthiest, I require the inhalers Spiriva Respimat and ProAir, alongside other medications. For Spiriva alone, I spent $3,300 last year. I tried to switch to a less expensive inhaler, but it doesn’t work as well for me, so I have to go back to using Spiriva. The pharmaceutical industry shouldn’t charge so much for a medication to help me breathe. I spent about $6,400 last year out-of-pocket for all of my medications. This is unreasonable.
My partner and I expected to be able to enjoy our retirement, but instead, we’re constantly having to cut back on expenses to be able to afford the rising prices of my medications. I have a bad back, and I used to be able to afford to hire someone to help clean my home. Now, with the rising drug costs, we can’t afford that. To walk comfortably, I need orthopedic inserts but can’t get them because they cost $200. To keep living, I need to keep breathing –– so my inhaler costs always come first. There isn’t an end in sight to pharmaceutical price gouging. If drug prices continue rising at this rate, my husband and I will be forced to sell our home and property.
The drug industry likes to talk about its “assistance programs,” but I can tell you that even with our meager income, we make too much to qualify for them. People like me don’t need paperwork and hoops to jump through –– we need lower drug prices.
It’s not fair that the pharmaceutical industry is profiting off of retirees on fixed incomes like us. Our legislators have to limit the ability of drug companies to keep raising prices. Congress needs to allow for Medicare negotiation.
My name is Kirk and I live in Bowling Green, Kentucky. I’m 52 years old and am self-employed. I’ve worked hard and enjoyed being productive my entire adult life. I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to be self-employed and be successful and happy in my career. I am fully living the American dream. Our freedom allows us so many opportunities and I thank God for them all.
Having diabetes type 2, I have quickly learned that there is something very wrong with the American health care system — and it doesn’t take much effort to track the problem back to pharmaceutical corporations. It’s obvious that these companies are putting massive effort into creating monopolies on specialized drug treatments. They make the most money monopolizing drug therapies for life-threatening diseases that affect large amounts of the population. This “formula for success” finds diabetes patients ripe for the picking.
I have an excellent doctor who takes my health care seriously. She monitors my disease and has developed a comprehensive plan to manage my illness. But the amount of time she and I must spend trying to get access to the medications I need is utterly ridiculous.
Health insurance companies are rightfully balking at paying out-of-control prices for these drugs. This leaves my doctor having to make multiple attempts at getting drugs approved or finding alternatives that might not be as effective. And it leaves me, the patient, constantly changing drug stores to save any money possible and spending hours of my time each month tracking down manufacturer “patient assistance cards” that are obviously geared to get the maximum price a person can stand to pay without losing the sale. It’s contrived, extremely greedy, and in my opinion, evil.
I consider myself as fitting solidly in the middle class. My career as a computer network engineer is a rewarding one and I am more than happy with my compensation. In years past, compensation at my level would ensure a worry-free, comfortable retirement. Even after the massive effort from myself and my doctor, the lowest price I pay each month is $1,000 for TWO drugs (Synjardy and Ozempic.)
I am already cutting back on other areas of my life so I can afford these two drugs. What started out decades ago as a smart plan for a comfortable retirement has ended up being a large fund that will be necessary to simply pay for my medications in retirement — and not much else. I know many people my age who are in much worse shape retirement-wise. This leads to quite a bleak outlook for the future of our nation. Who will these companies squeeze for cash when we all run out of money?
My name is David Cruz and I live in Fort Collins, Colorado. In 2015, I was diagnosed with diabetes after my sugar levels reached near fatal levels. After spending time in the hospital where my levels continued to rise, my medications were finally able to bring my blood levels down. I now take Lantus, metformin, lisinopril, and allopurinol.
I dread seeing what the cost will be every month when I have to refill my prescriptions. I’m retired and have insurance coverage through Medicare, but every year my out-of-pocket costs increase. My Lantus insulin alone has a monthly list price over $1,100 and even with insurance still costs me about $130 every month. Once I hit the Medicare cap, which I hit in September of this year, my monthly cost goes up to $250. That’s a huge expense for anyone, but especially for someone who’s retired.
These prices are already unmanageable, but with Lantus continually increasing its price, my out-of-pocket costs continue increasing as well. Every year I hit the Medicare limit for out-of-pocket costs just on my prescriptions, and it seems that I hit this limit earlier and earlier every year.
The high costs of my prescriptions kill my budget. It’s incredibly difficult to plan around the hundreds of dollars I spend on prescriptions each year when retired. I want to be able to plan ahead and stick to a budget, but the uncertainty about my rising prescriptions costs makes that difficult, and with such high prices, I’m lucky if I can afford all my prescriptions and not get behind on bills.
Earlier this year I broke a vial of my Lantus insulin, which only makes affording my drug even more expensive. It’s frustrating that one accident can destroy my budget for the rest of that month and put my health at risk. Because of their astronomical and constantly increasing cost, my drugs are unaffordable for me. I need these drugs to survive, so I end up making sacrifices in other ways, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep up with these costs.
I don’t understand how drug companies expect seniors to survive with these high drug prices. Our necessary medications cost hundreds of dollars and many of us are left deciding whether to buy our prescriptions or pay our bills. We should never have to make a decision between staying healthy and paying the bills to keep a roof over our head, and an accident like breaking a vial shouldn’t set us up for financial ruin.
We need leaders willing to work for patients and seniors like me. Our system should work to bring down drug costs and limit price increases like I’ve experienced with my prescription drugs. Insulin prices are already high enough and keep rising with no just reason. Patients across the country are suffering and sacrificing just to afford their medicine.
By Tomi Fadeyi-Jones, Chuck Hurley, Gloria Johnson-Cusack, Cal LaRoche, David Mitchell, Nicole Solomon-Mitchell
As Democrats and Republicans consider how to deliver on their promises to lower drug prices made during the 2020 election, there’s an important imperative for reform that has gone underreported: High drug prices contribute to poor health outcomes and disproportionately harm Black and Brown Americans — perpetuating systemic racism in health care.
Racial disparities in health care are well-documented, as Black Americans are more likely to suffer from chronic pain, diabetes, high blood pressure, and COVID-19 due to economic, political, and social conditions. They are almost twice as likely to be uninsured and have lower incomes, putting a source of regular care and medical treatments out of reach for too many. As a result, the life expectancy of a Black man in America is almost five years less than that of a white man.
Diseases that disproportionately affect Black Americans are often under-researched by drug corporations. Sickle cell disease is a clear example. It was discovered more than 100 years ago and its cause has been understood for about 50 years, but investment and innovation have lagged far behind other drugs that treat smaller populations.
Most recently, the coronavirus pandemic has brought into painful and stark view the impact of continued systemic racism in U.S. health care. Not only are Black and Brown Americans more likely to contract the virus, they are more likely to die as a result. Yet drug corporations are actively raising prices on drugs, such as anticoagulants and cardiovascular medications, that can help treat underlying conditions that may contribute to increased mortality.
The barriers to and rationing of treatment resulting from high prescription drug prices are an integral part of how systemic racism plays out in health care. By consistently putting profit maximization ahead of public health, drug companies inflict the greatest pain on those who are most vulnerable — Black Americans and other people of color. While 25 percent of white Americans report not taking prescription medications as prescribed due to cost, the number rises to 30 percent among Black Americans and 42 percent among Hispanics.
Drug corporations tout so-called patient assistance programs as a solution for people who cannot afford their drugs. But 97 percent of these programs exclude people who don’t have insurance. Why? Because these programs are really about selling more drugs at high prices; drug companies want to spend patient assistance money to cover patient copayments in order to leverage the much higher total insurance payment for a drug. Since Black Americans are almost twice as likely to be uninsured, these programs are frequently of no help to them. Those without insurance are often condemned to pay the high list prices set by drug corporations — not the discounted prices that insurers negotiate for their customers.
Yet, there is a more insidious and far-reaching impact of our drug pricing system in perpetrating systemic racism: We permit drug corporations to dictate whatever price they choose, and as a result, they extract an unearned and disproportionate share of the nation’s resources. For every dollar of taxpayer money we send to drug corporations in unwarranted profits through Medicare and other public programs, that is a dollar we don’t have to provide insurance coverage, improve nutrition, clean up water, increase funding for education, and generally support the steps that can lead to a healthier and higher quality of life for communities of color.
The bottom line with prescription drug pricing in America is that brand drug corporations insist on unfettered power to set prices as high as they choose, and diverse communities are disproportionately hurt by their practices.
We can fix our drug pricing system to make Black and Brown lives healthier and longer. To do that, there must be access to affordable prescription drugs — and that starts with lower list prices. Legislation that advanced in the U.S. House and Senate last year — most notably H.R. 3 — would move us in the right direction. It would lower drug prices in both public and private sector plans and reconfigure Medicare benefits to reduce out-of-pocket costs.
Black Americans are consistently underrepresented in clinical trials for diseases ranging from diabetes to heart disease to cancers, despite being disproportionately affected by many of them. H.R. 3 included more money for the National Institutes of Health; we believe a greater share of that funding should be earmarked for conditions that disproportionately affect people of color and to fund clinical trials that include representation of all Americans.
At the state level, the NAACP has endorsed the creation of drug affordability boards “to determine how best to make prescription drugs more affordable for residents,” and we are working in support of legislation to establish boards in several states.
The late Congressman Elijah Cummings summed it up clearly a few years back and made this link to high drug prices: “These factors place African Americans in a double bind — we are more likely to suffer from an expensive chronic disease and we earn less money with which to pay for our health care, including skyrocketing prescription drug prices.”
Black lives matter. We remain committed to and will continue the fight for reform, and a new healthcare system that prioritizes public health — especially the health of Black Americans and all people of color — over unjustified profits for multinational drug corporations.
###
The authors are members of the Boards of Directors of Patients For Affordable Drugs and Patients For Affordable Drugs Now.
Whatever the outcome on Tuesday, this election has made one thing clear yet again: Voters care deeply about taking on drug corporations and bringing down the price of prescription drugs.
This cycle, in an unprecedented way, candidates, political parties, and independent expenditure campaigns spent time and money talking about rising prescription drug prices and promising to fix the broken system. Candidates on both sides of the aisle made promises to bring down drug prices — with good reason. Lowering drug prices is a winner in polling, among voters at the kitchen table, and for the economy.
Take a look for yourself.
POLLING demonstrates the power of lowering drug prices.
CANDIDATES put their time and money behind ads and talking points promising to lower drug prices.
LAWMAKERS pay a political price for betting on Big Pharma. Outside entities believe ties to drug corporations are toxic and spent millions this cycle defining candidates as in the pocket of Big Pharma.
VOTERS want to hear about plans to lower drug prices.
My name is Sherry and I’m from Oro Valley, AZ. I take a drug called Topamax to treat my intense migraines, but it’s so expensive that I have to cut down on other areas of my life.
I’ve been taking Topamax for 25 years, and back then, I remember paying around $50 for a 30-day supply. These days, it costs about $280 out-of-pocket for a three-month supply, even after insurance coverage. I have to continue using the brand-name drug because the generic doesn’t control my migraines as well.
I don’t have any choice but to keep using Topamax because it really reduces the number of migraines I get. Without this medication, I’m completely non-functioning. My migraines can last for up to four days and prevent me from working and carrying out my daily routines. When I get a migraine, the lights are blinding and I’m constantly nauseous. It feels impossible to think and it’s even painful to lie down — you don’t want your head to touch anything. Topamax allows me to live a more normal life.
Topamax is the most expensive medication I take, but I’ve seen the prices of my other drugs increase as well. Ascomp with codeine, another medication for headaches, costs $30 for a month’s supply even though it used to cost $5. Similarly, Synthroid now costs $20 instead of $6 for a 90-day supply. These expenses take a big hit on my budget and make it impossible to put money away for emergencies.
Drug companies are ripping off older people simply because they can. I’m sick and tired of working for what I have and losing everything because I need to pay for my medications. And yet it doesn’t feel like anyone is paying attention to this issue. It’s time for our lawmakers to take care of America’s seniors and work on getting drug prices down once and for all.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — During tonight’s presidential debate in Nashville, Vice President Joe Biden promised to stand with patients and let Medicare negotiate for lower drug prices.
“Drug prices are a top issue for voters, and we appreciate Vice President Biden emphasizing his plan to lower prices, promote competition, and let Medicare negotiate,” said Ben Wakana, executive director of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now.
Watch the clip here.
TRANSCRIPT:
Vice President Biden: “We’re going to make sure we reduce the premiums and reduce drug prices by making sure that there’s competition that doesn’t exist now by allowing Medicare to negotiate.”
BACKGROUND:
###
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Patients across the country are calling on President Trump and former Vice President Biden to discuss their plans to lower the prices of prescription drugs at the final presidential debate in Nashville Thursday.
“Ever increasing drug prices continue to hurt Americans all across the country,” said David Mitchell, a cancer patient and the founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now. “And with the pandemic stealing lives and livelihoods, voters need to hear from the candidates about how they will lower the prices of prescription drugs. We will be listening as the candidates lay out their final arguments Thursday — to hear how they will fight for patients and stand up against pharma.”
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly 9 out of 10 voters say lowering prescription drug prices is a top health care issue deciding their 2020 vote. And, 35 percent of voters say drug pricing is among their “most important” voting issues, according to Gallup.
Patients in 15 key battleground states have shared stories of the impact skyrocketing drug prices have had on their lives. Here’s a sample of what patients across the country want the presidential candidates to understand:
Blythe Kauhn, Chandler, AZ, type 1 diabetes: “I feel like more people need to understand that it’s not cheap to have conditions that don’t go away. We don’t get to say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to have diabetes this month.’”
Kris Garcia, Denver, CO, bleeding disorders: “When you cast your ballot, make sure your candidate has a plan to lower drug prices.”
Clayton “DJ” Martin, Jacksonville, FL, sickle cell disease: “As a father with sickle cell, with a daughter with the sickle cell trait, I worry about her future because of the high prices of drugs.”
Patricia McKenzie, Lithonia, GA, type 2 diabetes: “People have to choose between eating and their medications. They have to choose between life and death. And that should not be a choice. Not here in America.”
Jacquie Persson, Waterloo, IA, Crohn’s disease: “I’m voting for candidates who will stand up to Big Pharma and lower the prices of prescription drugs.”
Tammy de la Cruz, North Las Vegas, NV, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy: “The cost of this medication is anywhere from $1,000 to $1,500, and I get it every week. Without it, I fear I will become paralyzed again.”
Rose Keller, Concord, NH, cystic fibrosis: “The high cost of drug prices has stripped me, and other young patients like me, of the opportunity to dream about what we might be when we grow up.”
Don Kreis, Concord, NH, Rose’s father: “For my sake, and for the sake of my daughter, I hope you will vote for candidates who fight Big Pharma and stand up for lower drug prices.”
Steven Hadfield, Charlotte, NC, blood cancer: “The doctor has recommended me to work less. But I live in fear over my high drug prices.”
Sophie, 19, Grand Rapids, MI, type 1 diabetes: “It’s going to be my first time voting this year. Prices of drugs have a huge effect on my vote.”
Hazel, 12, Grand Rapids, MI, type 1 diabetes: “I hope you’ll vote for candidates who will fight for lower drug prices.”
Travis Paulson, Eveleth, MN, type 1 diabetes: “Since the pandemic has started, we’ve been forced to buy our medications and insulin at the extraordinary prices they charge here in the U.S.”
Heidi Kendall, Missoula, MT, chronic myeloid leukemia: “It’s scary to depend for my life on a drug that costs so much.”
Kolton Chapman, Pickerington, OH, ulcerative colitis: “When I was on Entyvio, I was responsible for paying $2,000 a month. It was more than I owe in student loans, so I ended up filing for bankruptcy because of my medical debt.”
Rachel Burnett, Pittsburgh, PA, Crohn’s disease: “It’s so unfair to have these illnesses, and it’s so unfair to have to pay so much just to stay alive.”
Candice Brown, Alexandria, VA, ulcerative colitis: “This drug pricing system was not meant to benefit me as a patient. It was meant to benefit Big Pharma.”
Leah Clark, Columbus, WI, Crohn’s disease: “I have big plans for my future, and I can’t afford to have the high cost of drug prices getting in the way of my accomplishments.”
In September, Patients For Affordable Drugs Now launched a national campaign lifting up the voices of patients who are calling on voters to support candidates who will stand up to Big Pharma and fight to lower prescription drug prices. The campaign features TV, radio, and digital ads alongside tools to give grassroots patient advocates the power to engage with candidates on the issue of drug prices. P4ADNow is an independent, bipartisan patient organization focused on policies to lower drug prices. It does not accept funding from any organizations that profit from the development or distribution of prescription drugs.
###
