ICYMI: Patients across the country are sharing concerns about government price setting

As members of Congress continue to push forward misguided government price-setting policies under the guise of “negotiation,” patient advocates across the country have been speaking out in local media outlets about the potential consequences.

Advocates are highlighting how the latest price-setting bill threatens access to future medical advances, guts the very incentives necessary to encourage investment into new cures and treatments for our most complex conditions and ignores how insurers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) drive up spending by shifting costs to patients when they can least afford it.

Patient advocates have a unique and personal understanding of the very real consequences government price setting could have and the solutions patients need today. Read more about what they are saying below.

• “I still heavily rely on many different medications to keep me and my donor kidney healthy. That’s why we can’t afford to stop pharmaceutical innovation in its tracks. Without such medical investigation and exploration, I may not have fared as well as I have. I am living proof that illness happens when you least expect it. We need to make certain that research and development can continue, so all patients can get the treatments they need.”  — Don’t End Medical Innovation, The Intelligencer by Danielle (West Virginia)
  
  
• “You see, while it sounds good in a sound bite, the truth of the matter is the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said government price setting could result in as many as 60 fewer new treatments and cures over the next several decades. I hope that our leaders in Washington will think of families fighting Alzheimer’s and other diseases who pray every day for a breakthrough when it comes time to vote on price setting. Who knows, one of those 60 medicines we sacrifice could treat Alzheimer’s.” — Join the Alzheimer’s fight, Daily Inter Lake by Thomas (Montana)

• “By tampering with the market and dictating access to certain medications, patients’ lives may be at risk. It has been found that price-setting policies could also disproportionately impact new treatments for rare diseases, oncology, and neurology... For myself and the many cancer patients in Nevada and across the country, this is a tradeoff we can’t afford.” — A Tradeoff Cancer Patients Can’t Afford, Nevada Globe by Leslie (Nevada)

• “The more I learn, the more I’m convinced that if politicians really wanted to save patients and consumers money, they’d be targeting their efforts at insurers or pharmacy benefit manager middlemen — the real drivers of astronomical out-of-pocket costs. Instead, they are pushing for policies like price controls that could result in limited access to new treatments and fewer new medications created over the next few decades. I hope level heads prevail on this issue and that our members of Congress reject policies that could come between families and their care.” — Letter: Medicare price controls wrong tactic to reduce cost, Albany Times Union by Adrienne (New York)

Learn more about why government price setting is bad policy and better ways Congress could help patients access and afford their medicines.

Take action: Tell Congress to protect access to new medicines.