From the Courage Campaign (https://www.couragecampaign.org/):
More than 1.25 million people in the U.S. suffer from Type 1 diabetes, which requires insulin to treat.(1)
Predatory pharmaceutical companies have doubled the cost of insulin in the last six years, and now one in four diabetics admit to rationing the life-saving medicine to save money — a decision that costs many their lives.(2)
The House of Representatives is considering H.R. 3, a bill to reduce drug prices and help us afford the medications we need. But if this bill is going to pass through Congress, we’re going to need to show huge grassroots support.
Go to https://www.paction.us/prescription-drug-prices/courage to tell Congress to pass the Lower Drug Costs Now Act of 2019 and help stop skyrocketing prescription prices in the U.S.
Insulin is one of the oldest prescription medications, and the patent was sold to a university for just three dollars in the 1920s.
But drug companies manipulated the system, and in 2003, they started jacking up the price of insulin. Now diabetics pay nearly $6,000 a year for the lifesaving drug.(3)
The drug is so expensive that diabetics are trying to stretch out their supplies, putting their health in danger.
In 2018, Meghan Carter, a nurse waiting for a new job with health insurance to start, died of diabetic shock due to rationing her insulin — and that’s just one of many similar stories.(4)
It’s not just insulin. Martin Shkreli made national news when he bought the patent for the EpiPen — a medicine that helps people in anaphylactic shock due to an allergic reaction — and upped the price 500%.(5) In general, prices for medications have gone up 9.5% a year, triple the rate of inflation.(6)
These exploding prices have translated into 25% of patients taking less of their medications than prescribed in order to save money.(7)
The Lower Drug Costs Now Act would allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices with the power of the government behind it — and then make pharmaceutical companies offer that same price to the public. It would lower the price of critically important medications, and we need both the House and the Senate to pass this bill right away.
Footnotes:
1. https://www.diabetes.org/resources/statistics/statistics-about-diabetes
2. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/another-person-has-died-from-rationing-insulin.html
3. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/50-states/2019/03/21/diabetes-insulin-costs-diabetics-drug-prices-increase/3196757002/
4. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/50-states/2019/03/21/diabetes-insulin-costs-diabetics-drug-prices-increase/3196757002/
5. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/08/25/martin-shkreli-heather-bresch-mylan-epipen/89334136/
6. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/no-end-sight-rising-drug-prices-study-finds-n1012181
7. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/02/opinion/sunday/pelosi-drug-prices-plan.html
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