The recently advanced Prescription Drug Pricing Act could lead to billions of dollars of health care savings for struggling families, Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) said during an event in Peterborough Tuesday. And, she added, the White House-endorsed bill represents a “breakthrough” in bipartisan politics.
The act’s efficacy in reaching across the aisle, Hassan said, is due to people nationwide reaching out to their legislators and sharing their stories of prescription drug price hikes, insurance nightmares and surprise medical bills.
“It’s because of the amount of outrage that people have expressed,” Hassan said. “They are, rightly, seeing their senators and congressmen at the grocery store and saying ‘What are you doing about this?’ The more people speak up, the more volume there is in terms of cases that are brought to legislators’ attention, the harder it is for them to ignore, and it gives them the strength to stand up to a Big Pharma.”
Hassan met with three local women who shared their own stories on Tuesday during a sit-down discussion at 12 Pine, a cafe in Peterborough.
Melissa Gallagher, executive director of the Grapevine Family and Community Resource Center, told the story of a Grapevine family with crippling medical debt, who’d submitted a letter to be read to the senator.
“As the bills rolled in, I’ve been shocked by how much things cost,” Gallagher read. “I don’t know where people come up with the figures for what an ambulance ride costs, but I know a single ride has the potential to wipe out a family financially.”
Krista Gilbert of Keene and her 22-year-old son Jordan both have a rare disease called Ehler-Danlos, a connective tissue disorder; her son also has agenesis of the corpus callosum, a neurological disorder, and between the two of them visiting specialists, medical bills are often daunting, and sometimes surprising.
“With multi-system involvement, we do have unexpected costs,” she said.
Laura Landerman-Garber of Hollis said she faced bills of up to $35,000 per shot to treat her own rare disease, Familial Mediterranean Fever; it was only after making phone call after phone call that she was able to find reduced rates and insurance coverage that knocked that sky-high figure down to something more approachable.
“When I was very young, my parents taught me three things: to be persistent, to be resilient and to use my voice,” Landerman-Garber said. “I’m unfortunate, because I had to use those, but I feel fortunate because I have those skills.”
Her biggest concern, she said, was that people in similar situations might not have the tools to find a way to reduce their bills.
The Prescription Drug Pricing Act, which passed the Senate Finance Committee last month, along with the Affordable Medications Act of 2019 would eliminate drug manufacturers’ monopolies, allow negotiation for Canadian prescriptions at lower cost, cap prices, and penalize manufacturers for price spikes, among other things. The act has a handful of Republicans on board and, for now, the blessing of President Donald Trump.
“The most important thing about what we’ve got to do is that the patient has got to be pulled out of the middle of this,” Hassan said. “You pay your co-pay, you pay your insurance, you’re done. That should be it…If there are only one or two specialists in the country who treat a certain thing, I think that should be covered, no matter who your insurer is.”