WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Peter Welch of Vermont and David Mitchell, a cancer patient and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs, penned an op-ed in The Hill that calls on Congress to pass H.R. 3 to lower drug prices through Medicare negotiation. The piece is in response to President Biden’s strong commitment to lower prescription drug prices and the House’s reintroduction of H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, a package of drug pricing reforms that includes allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prices for all Americans. Read the full piece below.
Allow Medicare to negotiate on behalf of patients to lower drug prices
By Congressman Peter Welch and David Mitchell
May 12, 2021
President Biden’s speech announcing his American Families Plan reaffirmed his strong support for legislation to lower drug prices through Medicare negotiation. “Let’s give Medicare the power to save hundreds of billions of dollars by negotiating lower drug prescription prices,” he said. “Let’s do it now.”
President Biden is right. After nearly two decades of rising drug prices under a system in which drug corporations can dictate prices of brand-name drugs, Americans need the relief they have been promised.
Millions of patients need help — patients like 62-year-old Lucinda in Richmond, Vt., who has lived with rheumatoid arthritis since she was a teenager. To manage her symptoms, she was prescribed Simponi, methotrexate, and prednisone. The prices of these prescriptions have continued to increase each year since she was diagnosed as a teenager, coming to a total of $59,000 in 2019.
Lucinda’s story is not unique. Patients For Affordable Drugs has collected tens of thousands of stories of Americans who are skipping doses, cutting pills in half, rationing insulin, or choosing between paying the bills and buying the drugs they need. Americans are paying almost four times what people in other wealthy nations pay for the exact same brand-name drugs. As the president said, the time to act is now.
Democrats in the House of Representatives aren’t missing a beat. Last week, H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, was reintroduced. This bill would allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices on behalf of all Americans, prevent price gouging, and direct more money to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for critical research to ensure innovation and new drug development.
H.R. 3 would limit the annual out-of-pocket costs for Medicare beneficiaries to no more than $2,000, and would establish a top negotiated price for drugs at no more than 120 percent of the average of six other wealthy nations. The bill would penalize drug companies that increase prices faster than the rate of inflation.
The CEO of the trade association PhRMA recently complained that it should not be used as a piggy bank to fund other priorities. But it’s Big Pharma that has been using patients and taxpayers as piggy banks, raising prices at will to fund profits and trigger executive bonuses. Pharma’s chief lobbyist is right about one thing, however: America has other priorities. Every dollar we send to pharma in unjustified profits is a dollar we don’t have to tackle health care disparities, provide coverage to the uninsured, or fund research into new medicines aimed at improving public health instead of private profits.
H.R. 3 would support and protect innovation and new drug development by investing some of the expected savings into the world-class research funded through the NIH. The federal government is the primary source of basic research in biomedical sciences, and NIH funding is crucial to basic research that leads to the discovery of new drugs, as noted by the Congressional Budget Office. The most innovative new drugs are coming from investment by taxpayers through the NIH.
Most urgently, people are dying right now because they can’t afford the existing drugs they need. More than 1.1 million Medicare patients could die over the next decade because they cannot afford to pay for their prescriptions. If Medicare were empowered to directly negotiate prices with drug companies, there could be 94,000 fewer deaths annually just because people would be able to afford their drugs.
The reforms in H.R. 3 are widely supported. Ninety-three percent of Americans agree that Medicare should have the power to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices. It’s an issue that overwhelmingly unites Democrats, Republicans and independents.
Congressional support is not far behind. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has made clear her intention to include H.R. 3 in the American Families Plan. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who chairs the Finance Committee that will advance drug price legislation, has made clear his support for Medicare price negotiations.
We have an opportunity to, finally, make drug prices affordable if we stand with patients and stand up to Big Pharma. Now is the time for Congress to pass legislation that will deliver meaningful relief from high drug prices to the American people. With President Biden’s support, this is the year we will lower drug prices for Americans struggling to afford their medications.
Congressman Peter Welch has served Vermont’s at-large congressional district since 2007. David Mitchell is a cancer patient and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs, the only national, bipartisan patient organization focused solely on policies to lower drug prices.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The following statement was issued today by David Mitchell, a cancer patient and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, in response to the $4 million ad campaign launched by Big Pharma through the American Action Network, attacking Congress’ plan to lower prescription drug prices for Americans:
“Just as Congress is moving to deliver much-needed relief to patients struggling under the burden of high prescription drug prices, Big Pharma has launched a $4 million dark money campaign loaded with lies to attack H.R. 3. The truth is, H.R. 3 ensures we get affordable medicines we need now and innovation for the future. Patients and 88 percent of Americans support Medicare negotiation.
“No surprise: This is straight out of Big Pharma’s playbook — PhRMA CEO Steve Ubl said himself he will be ‘rolling the tanks … to push back against policy proposals adverse to the industry’s interests.’ PhRMA is turning the tanks on the American people.
“Patients are making their voices heard. We’ll step up our efforts to support members of Congress who stand with patients and stand up against Big Pharma.”
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Patients For Affordable Drugs Now founder David Mitchell will issue an urgent call for passage of H.R. 3 today in testimony before the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions. Mitchell, who depends on innovation and new drugs to stay alive in the face of an incurable blood cancer, will debunk Big Pharma’s false claims that any limits on its unilateral power to dictate prices on brand-name drugs will kill innovation and new drug development.
“Drugs are too expensive in the U.S. with no justification,” Mitchell will say at the hearing, titled Lower Drug Costs Now: Expanding Access To Affordable Health Care. “When drug makers hike prices each year, they don’t do so because the drug is more valuable. Drug companies raise prices simply because they can.”
H.R. 3 is a comprehensive bill that will lower prices, rein in price gouging, and reduce out-of-pocket costs by restoring balance to the U.S. drug pricing system to ensure both innovation and affordability.
“[H.R. 3] is estimated to save the government over $450 billion,” Mitchell will say. “Big Pharma complains that redeploying these savings to address other critical needs is tantamount to using the industry as a piggy bank. But in reality, it’s pharma that’s treated patients and taxpayers as piggy banks for years — raising prices at will to hit profit targets and trigger executive bonuses.”
Mitchell will explain that, contrary to pharmaceutical industry fear-mongering, there is room in the system to reduce drug prices without harming research and development; that taxpayers — not pharma — foot the bill for the high-risk, foundational science behind most valuable new drugs; and that H.R. 3 will not cut back on meaningful innovation or threaten early access to drugs.
“Let’s be clear: Big Pharma is not fighting for the interest of patients,” Mitchell will reiterate, pointing out that PhRMA’s CEO himself says that he is fighting “proposals adverse to the industry’s interests.”
“So you have to choose a side,” Mitchell will tell the committee. “Stand with patients and taxpayers. Or stand with pharma to protect ‘the industry’s interests.’”
The hearing begins today at 12:00 PM ET. Read a copy of Mitchell’s testimony here.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — In testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health today, patient advocate Therese Ball will tell her story and issue an urgent call for passage of H.R. 3 to help her and millions of Americans by lowering drug prices.
Ball, a grandmother, retired nurse, and patient living with multiple sclerosis, will share her experience of being unable to afford the medications she needs to keep her MS under control. The legislative hearing, “Negotiating a Better Deal: Legislation to Lower the Cost of Prescription Drugs,” will review a variety of bills, and Ball will explain why she supports H.R. 3, which would lower drug prices by allowing Medicare to negotiate on behalf of all Americans.
“I had a front-row seat to the horrifying reality of our drug pricing system: Drugs don’t work if people can’t afford them,” Ball of Ogden Dunes, Indiana, will explain to the committee.
Ball was diagnosed with MS in 2003 and was prescribed the medication Copaxone to manage her symptoms. When Copaxone first came to market in 1997, it was priced at $769 a month. Currently, that same monthly supply costs $7,114 — almost 10 times higher.
“I was completely overwhelmed by the price tag, and no matter how many times I crunched the numbers, I couldn’t make it work,” Ball will describe her experience in 2017. “So I made the terrifying decision to go without the drug. The health consequences were immediate and severe. I lost my memory and my quality of life suffered tremendously.”
Ball will explain that H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, would help beneficiaries like her by allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prices on expensive drugs like Copaxone. MS is a progressive disease, meaning Ball will continue to need new and innovative medications to keep her condition at bay. Ball will say that Big Pharma’s argument that any curbs on its unilateral pricing power will cause important innovation to grind to a halt is simply not true.
“Drug companies have taken this idea of innovation — this hope — and turned it into an ultimatum for patients. They say we must let them charge whatever prices they want, or we can say farewell to future cures. But that’s a false choice,” Ball will say.
“I urge you to vote in support of H.R. 3 — patients have waited long enough,” she will conclude.
H.R. 3., which was recently reintroduced, would allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices on behalf of all Americans, prevent price gouging, and direct more money to the National Institutes of Health for critical research to ensure innovation and new drug development. If passed, H.R. 3 would both bring relief to patients and save nearly half a trillion dollars for taxpayers by restoring balance to our drug pricing system and curbing pharma’s unilateral pricing power.
The hearing begins today at 11:30 AM ET. Read a copy of Therese Ball’s testimony here.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The following statement was issued today by David Mitchell, a cancer patient and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, commenting on President Biden’s speech to a joint session of Congress:
“Tonight, President Biden reaffirmed his strong support for legislation to lower drug prices through Medicare negotiation. Now, Congress should move quickly to pass H.R. 3 and incorporate it into the American Families Plan to — as the president said — ‘lower prescription drug costs for everyone.’
“The president’s remarks were a call to arms for millions of patients who are struggling under the burden of high drug prices to support congressional leaders to get the bill passed. It is time to stand strong against an industry that says it will be ‘rolling the tanks … to push back against policy proposals adverse to the industry’s interests.’ Congress needs our backing to restore balance so Americans get the innovation we need at prices we can afford. As the president said, ‘Let’s do it now.’”
Background:
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The following statement was issued today by David Mitchell, a cancer patient and the founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, in response to the reintroduction of H.R. 3 The Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act:
“H.R. 3 is the comprehensive package of reforms patients need to lower prices of prescription drugs while ensuring continued innovation and new drug development. Too many Americans are struggling to pay almost four times what patients in other wealthy nations pay for the same drugs — forced to choose between spending on bills or food and buying the medications they need. H.R. 3 will provide relief to Americans by allowing Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies for lower prices and by preventing price gouging.
“On behalf of patients, who overwhelmingly support Medicare negotiation, we are grateful to the leadership and members of the House of Representatives for this critical legislation. This is the reform President Biden and Democrats have promised. This is the time to get it done.”
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