Last week, the first 10 prescription drugs in Part D that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has selected for lower prices through Medicare negotiations were announced. And, for my father, those lower prices can’t get here fast enough.
You see, dad has COPD. He also was recently diagnosed with blood clots, a known potential side effect of having had COVID-19.
Each month, dad pays around $300 for his Medicare Part D plan and Medigold. Two of his inhalers, Flovent and Incruse, cost him roughly $200 more per month. And, with this recent diagnosis, he had to find another $136 to pay for his Eliquis blood thinner. I paid for it this month, to keep him from having to put it on a credit card, aka taking on debt to pay for his medication.
Making ends meet with rising property taxes, utilities and the cost of groceries has been very difficult for anyone on a fixed income. Many can’t make it work. Medical debt remains a leading cause of bankruptcies in the United States. And those on Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance are habitually denied and delayed their care claims, to pad corporate profits to the tune of $260 Billion.
Last week’s major milestone moves us closer to making medicines more affordable for the 5-7 million Medicare patients struggling to make ends meet. Expected savings over the next decade are over $98 billion.
This means people like my father can finally have some hope that the medicine he needs will be affordable rather than having to skip doses, ration medicine or go into debt to buy prescriptions.
However, several drug companies are fighting this historic legislation, including Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson. They don’t want us to be able to negotiate better prices. They are suing our government to block price negotiations and want to keep price gouging our people, instead of planning on long-term, reasonable profits.
Congress is keeping their promise to lower health costs, both within the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act last year, and by officially identifying this initial list of medications. Selecting these 10 drugs is just the first step. More are to be listed.
Now, CMS will have to move forward aggressively to negotiate with the drug corporations in order to arrive at fair prices that patients can afford, patients like my father.
Eve Marcum-Atkinson, of Huntington, is communications coordinator for West Virginia Citizen Action.
