The National Committee has been holding town hall meetings across the country, which coincide with intensifying efforts in Congress to pass meaningful drug price reduction legislation. Senator Ron Wyden (OR) headlined one of these spirited town hall meetings on November 8, 2019 in Portland, Oregon as part of the National Committee's "Don’t Cut Pills, Cut Profits" campaign. A capacity crowd of local seniors attended the event along with U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer (OR-03), Oregon state representatives and policy experts from the National Committee.
According to National Committee legislative director Dan Adcock, "The town hall was an unqualified success. The audience was engaged and interested. There were good questions and compelling stories. People were glad to hear the latest on prescription drug pricing from key players on Capitol Hill and their own state legislators."
Drug prices and out-of-pocket costs paid by seniors have soared, forcing some older Americans to go without needed medications, cut pills and skip doses — or even choose between paying for medicine and groceries. Fortunately, the elected leaders at this town hall are working hard to right this wrong.
The National Committee has been beating the drum about seniors' rising health care costs for several years. Now, a new study from Health Affairs confirms that seriously ill seniors face especially daunting financial hardships. According to the study, 53% of seriously ill Medicare patients are experiencing grave difficulty paying their medical bills, with unaffordable prescription drug costs posing the biggest challenge.
To mitigate the financial strain on seniors, the National Committee advocates catastrophic caps on out-of-pocket costs for Medicare Part B and Part D beneficiaries, improved supplemental Medigap coverage and the passage of legislation to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices with Big Pharma, which would produce some $345 billion in cost savings over seven years. These represent reasonable, common sense solutions to stop seniors from going broke because of soaring health care costs in the world's wealthiest nation.
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