As Big Pharma prepares to fight upcoming legislation to lower drug prices, it is ramping up some of its most powerful scare tactics. In reality, the current system is broken: drug companies experience the highest profits of any major industry while nearly one in four Americans report that they struggle to afford prescribed medications. Big Pharma is enjoying sky-high profits and breaking records for the money it’s spending on K Street lobbyists to block any meaningful reform.
Fortunately, the momentum is with us. Polling shows broad and wide support for Medicare negotiation across the political spectrum. In order to deliver on the promise to finally lower drug prices, Democrats must keep up momentum to ensure action and make clear that we are working to end Big Pharma’s rigged system. Here are some key messages:
- Americans should not pay three times more for medicines than people in other countries do.
- Millions of Americans cannot afford their medicines, while drug companies make huge profits. Americans should not have to choose between paying for the medicines they need or paying for their food and rent.
- Drug companies raise the price of existing drugs like insulin year after year, with no reason other than that they can. Even during the pandemic and economic crisis, drug companies raised the prices of more than a thousand medicines.
However, Democrats will still need to push back against some of the lies. Here are some of the myths Big Pharma and its Republican allies are pushing:
MYTH: REDUCING DRUG PRICES WILL HARM INNOVATION, LIKE THE RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF THE COVID-19 VACCINE
FACTS:
- Higher profits do not correspond with increased research & development. Drug companies saved billions thanks to former President Trump’s tax bill. Instead of making meaningful investments in research and development, drug companies rewarded their executives and shareholders.
- Price hikes rarely correspond with increased clinical value. Year after year, drug companies hike the prices of existing drugs like insulin without any added benefit to patients.
- Taxpayers subsidize the creation of new drugs. Americans are being charged twice for high drug costs: first, as taxpayers funding research and development, and then again at the pharmacy counter.
- The development of COVID-19 vaccines were largely funded by taxpayers, not pharmaceutical companies. More than $19 billion in government funding has been invested in COVID-19 vaccines. Meanwhile, the drugmakers behind the vaccines are spending record amounts of money on lobbying efforts to block reform.
MYTH: H.R. 3 WILL MAKE THE U.S. RELIANT ON OTHER COUNTRIES
FACTS:
- Americans pay more for prescription drugs than anyone in the world. On average, Americans pay nearly three times more for medications than people in 32 other countries.
- CBO found that H.R. 3 would only have a small impact on new drugs coming to the market. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzed the impact of a decrease of pharmaceutical revenue as much as $1 trillion and found that it would only have a modest impact on drugs coming to market. The CBO found that the U.S. could lose only eight of the 300 new drugs expected in the next decade, and only one or two of which represent “true therapeutic advancements,” per Patients for Affordable Drugs.
MYTH: H.R. 3 IS GOVERNMENT OVERREACH AND WILL LEAD TO SOCIALIZED HEALTH CARE & DRUG RATIONING
FACTS:
- Drugs don’t work if patients can’t afford them. Millions of Americans report struggling to afford prescribed medications, forcing them to cut pills in half or skip doses altogether. A 2017 report from the National Academies of Medicine on lowering costs and protecting innovation concluded, “drugs that are not affordable are of little value.”
- Drug companies could lose $1 trillion in sales and still be the most profitable industry. Researchers from West Health Policy Center and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have found that drug companies could lose $1 trillion in sales and still be the most profitable industry.
