In the News

In September 2014, my life changed forever when my 2½-year-old son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

Despite our private insurance plan, the pharmacy bill for his insulin was outrageous. Though insulin was invented in 1922, its inflation-adjusted per-unit price tripled, at least, between the 1990s and 2014, and insulin costs per patient nearly doubled from 2012 to 2016.

Additionally, my husband already had a high monthly pharmacy bill for asthma and a neurological disorder. My 4-year-old daughter has asthma. Six years later, my husband and I still worry about paying for all the life-sustaining medications our family needs monthly.

My story is not unique, as millions of Americans struggle to pay for necessary medications or go without due to the soaring cost of prescription drugs. In 2019, prescription drug companies increased the list prices of more than 3,400 drugs and those increases averaged almost five times the rate of inflation. These skyrocketing costs are making it impossible for families like mine to purchase medications needed to stay alive.

I am grateful to U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, of Moosic for his yes vote on the Lower Drug Costs Now Act of 2019. It would allow Medicare to negotiate with big pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices for older adults, individuals with disabilities and all Americans with private insurance. It also creates a new, $2,000 out-of-pocket limit on prescription drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries and reinvests some of the savings in innovation and the search for new cures and treatments at the National Institutes of Health.

Now is the time for the Senate to take up this vital piece of legislation necessary to protect the American people from the abuse of the pharmaceutical industry.