WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) welcomed the introduction last week of legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 6505, that would require the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate prices of prescription drugs furnished under part D of the Medicare program. “We especially want to thank U.S. Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) and Peter Welch (D-Vermont) and their 82 fellow congressional co-sponsors for laying down this marker that the U.S. government should no longer get ripped off by obscenely priced prescription drugs after paying for 80 percent of the research and development that goes into discovering them,” said AHF President Michael Weinstein.
The American people agree. Requiring the government to negotiate what it pays for prescription drugs is overwhelming popular with American voters. According to Kaiser Family Foundation polling, 92 percent of Americans “favor allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries.” “Yet, the grip the drug companies have on the government has blocked any serious attempts to use the market to bring down the price of drugs,” said Tom Myers, general counsel and chief of public affairs, AHF. “The U.S. government engages in price negotiations with thousands of vendors, suppliers and defense contractors for goods and services. There’s no valid reason it can’t do the same with the drug companies.”
“AHF sees this legislation as a common-sense solution that every other industrialized country has embraced to reduce the high cost of health care,” said Weinstein. AHF joins the following groups in endorsing H.R. 6505:
Public Citizen, Social Security Works, Center for Medicare Advocacy, Consumers Union, Families USA, Patients for Affordable Drugs, Community Catalyst, AFSCME, American Federation of Teachers, Small Business Majority, CREDO, Consumer Action, Health Care for America Now (HCAN), UNITE HERE!, National Physicians Alliance, American Medical Students Association, Daily Kos, People’s Action, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, ACT UP New York, Progressive Democrats of America, People of Faith for Access to Medicines, Clinicians for Progressive Care, Physicians for a National Health Program, People Demanding Action, Business Initiative for Health Policy.
See H.R.6505 - Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act of 2018 for details on the proposal.
AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 965,000 individuals in 41 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us @aidshealthcare.
For information on the campaign to preserve 340B, please visit: www.let340B.org
