HAWAII — Patients For Affordable Drugs Now kicks off a campaign today calling on Rep. Ed Case (HI-01) to support swift passage 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 lower prices. The campaign includes digital advertising and grassroots advocacy to enable constituents to contact Rep. Case and urge him to stand with Hawaii patients and support H.R. 3.
“Our message to Rep. Case is clear: You have a choice. You can stand with Big Pharma, which is fighting against lower drug prices for your constituents, or stand with Hawaii patients. Now is the moment to show that you will fight for patients,” said David Mitchell, a cancer patient and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now. “Hawaii residents need Rep. Case to push for passage of H.R. 3 to ensure we get affordable medicines we need now and innovation for the future.”
H.R. 3 was recently reintroduced in the House of Representatives. The chamber passed the bill in the 116th Congress. 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.
The campaign is part of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now’s seven-figure national campaign launching simultaneously in 42 House districts across 22 states and in D.C. It comes on the heels of Big Pharma’s recent attack adloaded with lies about H.R. 3.
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PENNSYLVANIA— Patients For Affordable Drugs Now kicks off a campaign today thanking Reps. Susan Wild (PA-07), Matt Cartwright (PA-08), and Conor Lamb (PA-17) for supporting 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 Pennsylvanians. The campaign includes digital ads as well as grassroots advocacy, in which constituents will contact Reps. Wild, Cartwright, and Lamb to thank them for fighting for patients. The campaign comes after Big Pharma launched a campaign loaded with lies, pressuring the representatives not to support H.R. 3.
“Big Pharma is trying to get Reps. Wild, Cartwright, and Lamb to bow to its power with lies and fear-mongering. But they are standing strong to win reforms that will lower the outrageous prices of prescription drugs,” said David Mitchell, a cancer patient and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now. “Thanks to Reps. Wild, Cartwright, and Lamb’s leadership, we can pass H.R. 3 to ensure we get affordable medicines we need now and innovation for the future.”
The campaign features ads highlighting patient advocate Marcus LaCour, who lives with type 1 diabetes. The ads will run on digital platforms in districts PA-07, PA-08, and PA-17.
You can watch the ad in PA-07 here.
You can watch the ad in PA-08 here.
You can watch the ad in PA-17 here.
“I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 15 years old. Because insulin is so expensive, I’ve had to skip and ration my doses. My wife has had to skip meals so that we could afford the insulin that I needed to survive,” LaCour, a Cincinnati husband, father, minister, and drug affordability advocate says in the video ad. “No family should have to make that decision. For millions of Americans, it’s serious enough that we need help.”
H.R. 3 was recently reintroduced in the House of Representatives. The chamber passed the bill in the 116th Congress. 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.
The Pennsylvania campaign is part of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now’s seven-figure national campaign launching in 42 House districts across 22 states and in D.C.
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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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Patients hit by skyrocketing drug prices are speaking out in favor of Medicare negotiation in response to a plan in the House of Representatives that would lower drug costs for Americans through negotiations with drug corporations.
“People are skipping doses, cutting pills in half, choosing between food and paying for their drugs. People are dying because they can’t afford their insulin,” David Mitchell, a cancer patient and the founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now will tell the the Education & Labor Subcommittee on Health today during a 2 p.m. hearing.
With drug prices continuing to skyrocket unchecked, three patients shared the impact of the status quo:
Sue Lee, Crewstood, KY, lives with plaque psoriasis: “I have been forced to stop taking Humira after learning the treatment would cost me over $8,000 a year out-of-pocket. I don’t have too large of a savings account and I live off of the fixed income provided to me by Social Security. I can’t afford to pay for Humira under any circumstances.”
Ruth Rinehart, Tampa, FL, lives with primary immune deficiency: “If drug costs were more affordable, it would take such a financial burden off my family. My husband is now also ill, and unfortunately, his drugs are not covered by insurance and so he cannot take what is being recommended for him. All we want is access to our medication without having to bankrupt our family.”
Bob Keller, Parsippany, NJ, lives with type 1 diabetes: “I wish that my wife could retire and we could move to Medicare, but because of the high cost of medication, that simply isn’t an option. I believe that Medicare should be able to negotiate lower drug prices for their beneficiaries. If they were to negotiate down the cost of my medication, my wife and I would enjoy a higher quality of life.”
Eighty-six percent of Americans — majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents — support allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices. But under current law, Medicare is prohibited from negotiating directly with drug companies on behalf of taxpayers and Medicare beneficiaries.
Nearly 1 in 3 adults report not taking their medicines as prescribed because of the cost. One in four have difficulty affording their medications.
Medicare negotiation would level the playing field for patients and taxpayers and lower the price of prescription drugs.
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My name is Bob Fowler. I am a North Ridgeville, Ohio resident, a soon-to-be-retired college professor, and a cancer patient. I am also one of the thousands of people across Ohio who is desperate for relief from skyrocketing drug prices.
I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in March 2006. I received a stem cell transplant in 2009, and shortly after that began taking a pricey chemotherapy drug, Revlimid.
For the last 10 years, I have taken Revlimid to treat my incurable blood cancer. Ten years ago, this drug cost my employee medical insurance plan $7,143 for a 28-day supply; today the price has jumped to $14,602. The cost has more than doubled for the exact same drug. Not so much as a molecule has been changed –– just the price. Every 28 days I receive 21 capsules of Revlimid; there are 13 of these 28-day cycles in a year; this amounts to approximately $190,000 per year.
Now that I am retiring, I am weighing my options for Medicare, and God only knows what the outcome of that will be. I am currently working with several knowledgeable experts to help me navigate the Medicare labyrinth to make the best choices for my wife and me. Early estimates tell us we can expect to pay at least $12,000 a year for my Medicare Part D drug coverage alone. Believe it or not, this was actually a relief to me. With the high retail price of my super-drug, I was afraid that it would cost me many tens of thousands of dollars under a Medicare Part D drug plan, because there is no mechanism currently to curb soaring Medicare drug prices.
Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices would change the lives of so many patients like me. Rapidly rising prices for drugs like mine are a good example of why arbitration is needed more than ever. Medicare negotiations would give me hope that the price of my super-drug would stop increasing like a runaway train. It would give me hope that my wife and I would not deplete our retirement savings due to my medical expenses. It would bring me such relief to know that Medicare drug prices are being managed rationally and logically. I am strongly in favor of allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. My financial health and perhaps even my life itself depend upon it.
My name is Ruth Rinehart and I am a resident of Tampa, Florida. I am a nurse case manager and just like some of my patients, I rely on life-saving medication for my survival.
I have a primary immune deficiency and have required an antibody replacement every three weeks for the last 26 years. The cost of my infusions varies between $3,000 and $4,000 each time. As a result of this, I have to make sure I am covered under the most expensive Medicare plan to make sure the infusions are covered at the highest rate. The cost of the insurance plan is equivalent to the cost of our mortgage.
A few years ago, we fell victim to the decline of the economy, the housing boom, and my husband’s job loss. All of that coupled with my high drug costs caused us to lose our home and file for bankruptcy.
This has had a devastating impact on our lives. Instead of having retirement savings, which we were on track to have before my illness, we are now living month to month on Social Security. I had to go back to work as a nurse at 67 years old in order to make ends meet.
If drug costs were more affordable, it would take such a financial burden off my family. My husband is now also ill, and unfortunately, his drugs are not covered by insurance and so he cannot take what is being recommended for him. All we want is access to our medication without having to bankrupt our family.
That being said, as a patient who is reliant on the services of Medicare and who would benefit from more affordable drug prices, I am strongly in favor of the proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate prices with drug manufacturers. This measure would change the lives of countless patients. Drug prices are out of control, and Medicare negotiation would help to remedy the plight we face.
My name is Robert Keller. I’m a 66-year old resident of Parsippany, NJ.
I have dealt with Type 1 diabetes for more than 40 years and I’ve had a kidney transplant. I have relied on long-term disability due to my diabetic symptoms. This allowed me to not only afford my medication, but also to stay at home with my two sons and take care of them. It’s been challenging, but I prefer to see the bright side of things. I got to stay at home with my two sons and be the best dad I could be. I taught them to fish, I was involved as a school parent, and even the only stay-at-home dad at the school’s Mother’s Tea.
But my disability income ended last year, and now many of my healthcare costs depend on my wife. She is 65 and still working, with no retirement in sight because of the high costs of my medication. She can’t stop working because if we were to use Medicare, my medication would cost my family up to $1,800 per month. That’s completely unaffordable.
I wish that my wife could retire and we could move to Medicare, but because of the high cost of medication, that simply isn’t an option. I believe that Medicare should be able to negotiate lower drug prices for their beneficiaries. If they were to negotiate down the cost of my medication, my wife and I would enjoy a higher quality of life.
I share my story because I want others to value good health, to thank God for it, but also, to try to take a walk in other people’s shoes. Think about when it might be you or a loved one in that hospital bed –– and how you would like to be treated. I can assure you you’d want to be able to afford your medicines.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In response to today’s release of a bill by House leadership that would lower drug prices for Americans, Ben Wakana, Executive Director of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, issued the following statement:
“Early details of H.R. 3 clearly deliver on the promise to break the monopoly pricing power of drug corporations by allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription prices. Importantly, the legislation incorporates key bipartisan priorities like an International Pricing Index, caps on price increases, and an out-of-pocket limit for prescription drug spending. It will lower drug prices for all Americans covered by a government plan or private insurance. H.R. 3 is a bold step forward.”
BACKGROUND:
The plan includes the following key provisions that would:
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