Public Employee Press: PEP Talk
Support lower drug costs now!
By GREGORY N. HEIRES
DC 37 members: Call your elected officials in Washington, DC and let them know you want Lower Drug Costs Now!
DC 37 is working with our national union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in support of H.R. 3 — the Lower Drug Costs Now Act, a bill that would allow the federal government to:
- negotiate prescription drug prices;
- impose penalties on companies that refuse to negotiate;
- stop unjustified price hikes for existing medications;
- and reinvest the savings back into Medicare.
“We need to put a stop to the escalating cost of prescription drug prices,” said DC 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido. “For decades, we have struggled to protect our popular prescription drug benefit from the voracious greed of the pharmaceutical industry. But we have reached the point where the federal government must intervene to contain drug costs.”
Members are urged to use a toll-free number — 1.866.957.9069 — to call their Congress member and senators to express support for the bill.
Throughout the years, skyrocketing prescription drug costs have steadily eaten up a greater portion of members’ benefits.
DC 37 has tried to curb costs with the adoption of a generic drug plan, encouraging the use of a mail-order program, controlling spending on cholesterol drugs, and periodically increasing co-pays. We have also worked with the Municipal Labor Committee, a coalition of city unions, to lessen the impact of drug price increases.
Years ago, the MLC established the PICA program, which provides injectable medications to union members. This fall, the DC 37 Health & Security Plan worked with city unions to establish a program for members who are prescribed expensive injections for hepatitis C.
A key provision of the bill would allow Medicare to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies over the price of drugs.
Pharmaceutical companies and their political allies kept that power out of the legislation that created the Medicare drug program during the administration of President George W. Bush.
U.S. drug prices are 3.7 times higher than the average cost in 17 other industrialized countries, according to the House Ways & Means Committee. Why? Because all the governments in the other industrialized countries have the right to negotiated with pharmaceutical companies.
