Today, one in five Americans who take prescription drugs are skipping or cutting their medication in half because they can’t afford it anymore.
That’s the choice so many face after years of double-digit price hikes -- a new Consumer Reports investigation put it starkly: more and more seniors are being forced to choose between life-saving prescription drugs and food.
Senator Bernie Sanders is right: America is the only advanced nation without universal health care and we pay more for prescription drugs than anyone else in the world. Our neighbors across the Canadian boarder pay only 72 cents for every dollar we spend on prescription drugs. We pay so much in part because federal law prohibits Medicare and Medicaid from negotiating for lower pharmaceutical prices.
Will you add your name to our petition to allow Medicare and Medicaid bargain for lower prices?
Now we’re seeing multiple prescription drug price hikes at multiple times a year, squeezing seniors. I hear the struggles in places like Watertown and Plattsburgh. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents on fixed incomes are falling through the "doughnut hole" and stretching budgets to cover insulin drugs, thyroid medications, and experimental therapies.
We must expand prescription drug coverage (including generics) to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, which has already provided health insurance to 80,000 people in the North Country. And when politicians take the budget cleaver to Social Security and Medicare, I’ll fight back -- because there is no more successful anti-poverty program than Social Security, and honoring Medicare is a fulfilling our commitment to seniors.
Click here to join me in sending a message to Congress: it’s time to stand up to the PhRMA.
No person should have to choose between food and a life-saving drug. Not at a time when prescription drug companies spend more on marketing and advertising than research and development. Not when these same giant companies are earning record profits and pushing reckless price increases.
I know that it isn’t going to be easy to take on the powerful Washington special interests backing my opponent. But I also know that together, we can get a fairer deal for our seniors.
Thank you,
Mike Derrick