Americans just won the long-fought battle to finally allow Medicare to negotiate the soaring cost of prescription drugs this August, but extreme Republicans are already working to put money back in Big Pharma's pocket by reversing this huge achievement. Just recently, Senators Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio of Florida, James Lankford of Oklahoma, and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming introduced a billto kill Medicare negotiation of drug prices.
This is not what Americans want. In fact, every time we've hosted town hall meetings over the last few years, we've heard from constituents about the struggle to afford lifesaving prescription drugs and even the difficult choices they face between taking their medicine as directed or paying for rent or food. In this day and age, while corporations are making record profits, no one should have to ration insulin or go without cancer treatment because they can't afford it.
The prices of prescription drugs have been rising faster than inflation for years, even during the pandemic and even as inflation hit historic highs in the aftermath of COVID. But for too long, all the talk about lowering drug prices was little more than lip service — almost no one expected any meaningful action, especially with the pharmaceutical lobby spending hundreds of millions to quash any potential legislative effort to limit their monopoly control over setting and raising prices.
But we never gave up and neither did leading patient groups like AARP, Patients For Affordable Drugs, and Lower Drug Prices Now. Our constituents elected us to Congress to get things done on their behalf - not just to talk. After years of work, we're proud to have delivered on our promises and passed the Inflation Reduction Act into law.
While there are many important components in this legislation that will help millions of people, the provisions related to drug prices and health care are truly historic. They deliver on the many years of promises to lower drug prices and build on our work to make health care more affordable for everyone.
The bill authorizes Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices for the first time ever. This is a gamechanger. Since 2003, Medicare has been legally prohibited to negotiate the prices of drugs despite the fact that Medicare is the largest purchaser of prescriptions in the United States, and other government agencies already negotiate for more affordable drugs. The Department of Veterans Affairs, for instance, negotiates drug prices and pays on average 54% less than Medicare for the same drug.
This legislation also stops price gouging by imposing penalties on any pharmaceutical corporation that raises its prices for medicines in Medicare faster than the rate of inflation. Big Pharma has already made more than 1,000 price increases in 2022 and in 2020 drug manufacturers increased prices faster than inflation for more than half of the drugs in Medicare.
In addition to holding Big Pharma accountable for lowering prices, in this bill we included provisions that lower out of pocket costs for patients and their families. For the first time, there will be a $2,000 annual cap on what seniors pay out of pocket for their prescriptions. More than a million seniors in Medicare Part D currently pay more than that each year and the number is expected to rise as enrollment increases and the price of medicines escalates.
The legislation will also create the first ever cap on insulin costs for patients in Medicare, capping the price of insulin at $35 a month for the 3.3 million beneficiaries in the program that take insulin. Out-of-pocket spending for insulin by patients in Medicare Part D quadrupled between 2007 to 2020, from $236 million to $1.03 billion, forcing many patients to ration and go without other basic necessities to afford it. Lawmakers wanted extension of some of these provisions, including the insulin cap, to apply well beyond Medicare so that we could include younger people with private and employer coverage who are also struggling with access and affordability, but Republicans derailed this effort, voting to oppose the more universal insulin cap.
Despite Republican opposition, this bill does help millions of people with private insurance by continuing affordability provisions passed in the American Rescue Plan Act that have lowered out of pocket spending for over 13 million people who get coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The bill extends the affordability tax credits by 3 years to ensure that people don't lose coverage or face tremendous price increases in coverage.
The drug corporation lobbyists haven't stopped opposing these commonsense reforms, claiming that these reforms will make innovation impossible hurt the industry, and patients. But the truth is that innovative treatments can't help people if no one can afford them. Moreover, as the most profitable industry in the nation, Big Pharma can more than afford innovation. After all, they continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying and marketing, and sometimes more than they do on research and development. Research shows that Pharma companies could lose $1 trillion in profits over the next decade and still remain the most profitable industry in the United States.
Big Pharma's mouthpiece, Stephen Ubl, has already gone on record with threats about punishing lawmakers like us, who voted to check the industry's price-gouging in the Inflation Reduction Act. What Stephen doesn't get is: we were elected to work in our communities' best interest—not his. Our job is to save our constituents money, not line his pockets.
There's still more we can do – including doing more to ensure the uninsured have access to lifesaving medications – and we're not stopping until we've made prescription medicines affordable for everyone, no matter where they live, what kind of coverage they have, or how much Big Pharma fights to keep profits sky high.
Wild represents Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district; Pappas represents New Hampshire's 1st congressional district; Horsford represents Nevada's 4th congressional district.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
