Ask about health care at a summer cookout, and you’ll likely get an earful about how drug corporations are gouging us, leaving many families to choose between buying medications or putting food on the table.
Why? Because corporations put profits before patients.
Look at a corporation like Mylan, the maker of EpiPen, which raked in $480 million in profits last year and paid its chairman $97.6 million, all while raising the price of the medication to more than $600 per dose.
And take Michael Pearson, the former CEO of the drug corporation Valeant, who put it bluntly: “The capitalistic approach to pricing is to charge what the market will bear.”
Meanwhile, I’ve been hearing from people around the country who are terrified that the health care repeal now before Congress will put life-saving medications even further out of reach for them and their families.
From Alaska to Alabama, people are worried sick about being able to get insulin for diabetes, blood pressure drugs, and prescriptions for panic attacks, ovarian cysts, lupus, celiac disease, thyroid cancer, hemophilia, and many other conditions.
I’ve heard from people whose lives depend on medications priced at $6,000 a month or more. If the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid are slashed, they don’t know how they’ll survive.
So it’s understandable that health care repeal is a dud when it comes to public opinion, with the Republican leaders’ bill before Congress garnering support from only 12 percent of voters.
It’s also no surprise that making drugs more affordable is a winning proposition with the electorate. More than 60 percent of Republicans, Democrats, and independents think it should be a top priority for lawmakers to lower the price of prescription drugs.
In other words, voters think we can and should change the rules to curb drug corporations’ excessive profits and monopolies.
It’s only fair. The public pays for much of the research to develop prescription medications. And we believe medications should be a public good, affordable for everyone in the country.
One way to start is to require Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. We could also shorten monopolies on lifesaving drugs, and make drug corporations justify their pricing by disclosing how much they spend on research, manufacturing, and marketing.
These solutions are popular, but none of them is included in the health care repeal legislation now before Congress. Instead, it hands drug corporations more than $25 billion in tax giveaways.
For them, that means higher profits. For us, it means higher premiums, higher deductibles, higher drug prices, and even the possibility our plans won’t cover medications at all.
Even worse, seniors, children, and people with disabilities will be kicked off Medicaid.
Nobody voted for that.
This health care repeal represents a real failure of Republican leadership to do what’s necessary to protect people and change the rules for drug corporations.
It’s also a betrayal of the promise made by President Trump, who once complained, “We’re the largest buyer of drugs in the world, and yet we don’t bid properly.” He even accused drug corporations of “getting away with murder.”
Let’s do what’s right for our country. Stop this health care repeal, and get down to the task of making health care — including lifesaving medications — affordable and available for all.
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
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In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
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