NEW YORK — Patients For Affordable Drugs Now launched a new ad today urging Rep. Kathleen Rice (NY-04) to vote for passage of strong Medicare negotiation legislation in the Build Back Better Act. The campaign includes TV and digital ads featuring patient advocate Kris Garcia, who lives with multiple bleeding disorders including hemophilia. It also includes grassroots advocacy, in which patients will write and call their members of Congress directly asking them to pass the Build Back Better Act, including legislation to lower drug prices for patients.
“Each infusion of medicine that I need to live costs nearly $40,000. But without it, a minor accident can become a medical crisis for me and a financial crisis for my family,” Kris, a father of three based in Denver, explains in the ad. “For millions of Americans like me, this isn’t about politics — this is about life and death.”
Rep. Rice supported H.R. 3 in 2019, and in 2020 campaigned on lowering drug prices and taking on Big Pharma, but broke her promise to patients and flippedher position by voting against including identical legislation in the Build Back Better Act last month in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She also signed onto a rival drug pricing bill that fails to empower negotiation in Medicare Part D, which accounts for 83 percent of Medicare drug spending, excludes most expensive Part B drugs from negotiation, and has a much higher out-of-pocket cap.
Watch the NY-04 ad here.
“Kathleen Rice has a chance to do the right thing and keep her promise to let Medicare negotiate lower drug prices,” the ad says. “Tell Representative Rice to vote yes on the Build Back Better Act.”
Below is a digital ad also running in the district:
“Nine out of 10 New Yorkers in Rep. Rice’s district support allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices, and 8 out of 10 think drug prices are unreasonable,” said David Mitchell, a patient with incurable blood cancer whose drugs carry a list price of more than $900,000 per year and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now. “It is imperative that Rep. Rice seize this moment and deliver on promises to allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for Americans — instead of supporting a weak and ineffective substitute masquerading as negotiation and designed to protect Big Pharma.”
P4ADNow also launched ads today urging Reps. Lou Correa (CA-46), Scott Peters (CA-52), Stephanie Murphy (FL-07), and Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05) to pass strong Medicare negotiation legislation in the Build Back Better Act. These ads come on the heels of P4ADNow’s Arizona ad launch and are running simultaneously with two nationalads that combat Big Pharma’s lies and scare tactics. These ads are part of a seven-figure campaign that includes digital ads running across a variety of websites and news outlets and congressional outreach, where patient advocates are contacting their members of Congress to demand passage of legislation to allow Medicare to negotiate. P4ADNow’s recent ads can be found here.
On Capitol Hill, Senate and House leadership along with President Biden are working to craft a reconciliation package that includes legislation to let Medicare negotiate and has the support of all Democratic members of Congress. The current House version of the package includes H.R. 3, a comprehensive bill that allows Medicare to negotiate lower prices, which recently advanced out of the Ways and Means Committee.
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My name is Holly and I’m from Rockville Centre, New York. In 2014, during my freshman year in college, I was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In a matter of days, my whole life changed from focusing on my new classes and getting used to being on a college campus to dealing with intense treatment.
I was only 18. My top focus should’ve been my health and treatment, but unfortunately with the high cost of my chemotherapy, the drugs’ costs were also something I had to consider. Just six months of chemotherapy and a variety of other prescription drugs I needed totaled over $200,000. Luckily, my insurance covered a large portion of the cost for the first few months, but after I lost insurance, the second half of my chemotherapy cost me over $100,000.
I was lucky I only needed six months of treatment to go into remission- most people need longer, but I couldn’t fathom such a large number and how my family and I would pay for it. How could the life saving treatment I needed come at such an unreasonable price?
I finished treatment over six years ago, but still have felt the effects of this medical debt for years after. Because of the medical debt, it was difficult to acquire the student loans I needed to return to college.
The high prices of prescription drugs are something that unfortunately could follow me for the rest of my life because of the effects of chemo and cancer. Cancer not only left financial damage on my family, but I have to experience further costs for prescriptions for egg retrieval after the chemotherapy affected my fertility.
Even with insurance, the prescriptions needed for egg retrieval to potentially have children one day cost hundreds of dollars even with insurance and are priced at almost $4,000 without insurance. And in addition to the egg retrieval drug costs, I will have to pay for hormone therapy treatment starting in my 30’s and continuing for likely the rest of my life.
A cancer diagnosis shouldn’t come with tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt. I shouldn’t have to pay hundreds of dollars even with insurance for prescriptions so that I could potentially have kids if I decide to one day. It shouldn’t mean that for the rest of my life I’ll be paying expensive prices to pharmaceutical companies for hormone treatment therapy. That’s why I know we need reform to lower drug prices. I’ve lived with the high costs of prescription drugs for the past 7 years, and I need our leaders to act so I don’t have to live with them for the rest of my life.
My cancer diagnosis changed my life, not only medically and financially, but my diagnosis played a big part in why I went on to study microbiology in college. I want to help find innovative discoveries that will advance treatment and help improve lives. I value innovation and understand concerns about reductions in research and development for new drugs, but the Big Pharma talking point that any reduction in drug prices will lead to less innovation and will harm patients just doesn’t hold up. Patients can’t access the drugs they need already. There are so many great scientific breakthroughs that have been made that patients cannot benefit from right now because of out-of-reach drug prices. With lower drug prices, patients can get the innovation we need at prices we can afford and people like me won’t have the cost of their drugs hanging over their head for years to come.
NEW YORK — Patients For Affordable Drugs Now announced it will extend its campaign thanking Reps. Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18) and Antonio Delgado (NY-19) for supporting H.R. 3 and calling on Rep. Kathleen Rice (NY-04) to support the bill that would lower drug prices by allowing Medicare to negotiate on behalf of New Yorkers. The new phase of the campaign will start July 2 and will include digital ads as well as grassroots advocacy, in which constituents will directly contact Reps. Maloney, Delgado, and Rice to ask them to stand with patients against Big Pharma.
“H.R. 3 will ensure New Yorkers have access to affordable medicine while protecting innovation for the future,” said David Mitchell, a cancer patient and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now. “Patients need Rep. Rice to stand up to Big Pharma and join Reps. Maloney and Delgado in pushing for this important legislation to lower the price of prescription drugs for Americans.”
The following digital ad will run in NY-18 to thank Rep. Maloney for standing with patients and to remind him to push for passage of H.R. 3.
The following digital ad will run in NY-04 to urge Rep. Rice to stand with patients and push for passage of H.R. 3.
P4ADNow’s campaign to support H.R. 3 was first launched on May 20 on the heels of Big Pharma’s attack ads loaded with lies, pressuring members of Congress not to support H.R. 3.
H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, was reintroducedin the House of Representatives in April. The chamber passed the bill in the 116th Congress. It 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 New York campaign is part of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now’s national campaign across 44 House districts.
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NEW YORK — Patients For Affordable Drugs Now kicks off a campaign today thanking Reps. Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18) and Antonio Delgado (NY-19) for supporting Medicare negotiation, and calling on Rep. Kathleen Rice (NY-04) 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 for New Yorkers. The campaign includes digital ads as well as grassroots advocacy for constituents to contact the members in support of H.R. 3. The campaign comes after Big Pharma launched ads loaded with lies, attacking members for supporting the bill.
“New Yorkers need Rep. Rice to follow Reps. Maloney and Delgado’s lead and push for passage of H.R. 3 to ensure we get affordable medicines we need now and innovation for the future,” said David Mitchell, a cancer patient and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now. “The choice is clear: You either stand with patients for lower prices or with pharma for higher prices. We need lower drug prices now.”
The campaign includes a digital ad highlighting patient advocate Marcus LaCour, who lives with type 1 diabetes, and thanking Rep. Maloney for supporting Medicare negotiation. The ad will run on digital platforms within NY-18.
“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.”
You can view the ad in NY-18 here.
Digital ads will run in NY-19 thanking Rep. Delgado for supporting Medicare negotiation. Digital ads will run in NY-04, urging Rep. Rice to stand with patients and push for passage of H.R. 3.
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.
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