Tell your Members of Congress and the White House: Lower the cost of prescription drugs!

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Call Script

My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.

I urge you to stand firm and continue fighting for robust provisions in the Reconciliation Bill to lower prescription drug costs through Medicare-negotiated prices, add dental and vision benefits to Medicare, and expand access to home- and community-based care through Medicaid.

The Reconciliation Bill should:

Allow Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices
Allow drug importation from Canada
Limit the ability of drug companies to hike prices on existing drugs
Impose a cap on out-of-pocket spending for the Medicare prescription drug benefit
Speed approval of biosimilar and generic drugs & shorten the exclusivity period

It’s also imperative that you include in the Reconciliation Bill a provision that authorizes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to issue and enforce common sense orders and directives, such as eviction moratoriums, in a national public health emergency to slow the spread of infectious disease.

Background

Prescription drug prices in the U.S. are more than 250% times higher overall than those in 32 other major countries. Meanwhile, Big Pharma is doing great: their profits are almost double the average for non-pharmaceutical companies (13.8% vs 7.7%). We’re the ones being forced to foot the bill for their gravy train.

BigPharma claims that reducing the costs we and the government pay for prescriptions will hinder and slow innovation and research on new treatments. Hogwash! Compared to other industries, their profits are obscenely high. They’re not going to stop bringing new profitable products to market just because their profits are reduced by a tiny fraction.

BigPharma claims that negotiating prices like everyone else in the world amounts to price controls and that’s (gasp!) a step towards socialism. That’s just the same old blarney they shrieked about Obamacare: Healthcare rationing! Death panels! Horrors! They wailed the same nonsense about Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, and government regulation of food and drug quality and purity.