Big Pharma is gouging us and everyone knows it. Even Donald Trump promised to do something to stop skyrocketing pharmaceutical prices. But finally, there is a bill before Congress that can break the drug corporations’ overwhelming monopoly.
We know the most brazen acts of extortion from drug companies: “Pharma-bro” Martin Shkreli’s 5,000% price hike to a cancer drug -- or Mylan’s executives pocketing hundreds of millions off its sixfold increase to the indispensable EpiPen. That’s why hundreds of thousands of SumOfUs members stood up against these infuriating injustices.
But the fact is that price gouging is business as usual for Big Pharma. Our health system rewards drug companies with virtually unlimited control over the market and they use it to charge Americans more for lifesaving medication than anywhere else in the world. But a new Bill could put a stop to this criminal monopoly once and for all.
Tell Congress: it’s time to stop drug corporations from ripping people off.
As a result of the greed of pharmaceutical corporations, nearly 1 in 5 U.S. residents do not fill a prescription because they cannot afford it. The “Improving Access to Affordable Prescription Drugs Act,” sponsored by 16 prominent Democrats including Al Franken, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, aims to roll back drug company monopolies and hold Big Pharma to account for price gouging.
If this Bill were up to ordinary people, it would pass instantly. An overwhelming majority of Americans agree that Congress must act to stop Big Pharma from extorting the sick, disabled and dying with ludicrously high prices for medicine that could save their lives. But we know the power of Big Pharma’s lobbyists. That’s why we need to meet it with pure people power. It’s the only way we can ever get a system that works for us, and not for drug company CEOs.
Call on Congress to end Big Pharma’s criminal monopoly. Pass the Affordable Prescription Drugs Act now.
More information
HuffPo. 30 March 2017.
NY Times. 20 April 2017.