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Health Care Forum - Meeting with Member of Congress

6/23/2017

Meeting with Rep. Bustos Staff - After Action Report

On Friday, June 23, members of the Health Care Reform Forum met with Kate Jennings Gerber, District Director of Congresswoman Cheri Bustos. After we shared information about our forum and its history, we expressed our deep opposition to the current efforts in the U.S. Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Ms Gerber explained that Congresswoman Bustos has been releasing videos on Facebook about the effect of the proposed changes on people with pre-existing conditions; we suggested several additional ways that she and her colleagues could enhance their opposition. We also encouraged her to work with her colleague in the Iowa Quad-Cities, Congressman Loebsack, to generate a Quad- City response.

Additionally, we discussed our concerns about the high cost of prescription drugs in this country and gave Ms. Gerber materials expressing our concerns, including copies of our letters to the local newspapers.

It was an excellent meeting. Ms Gerber was very generous with her time and took detailed notes, which she said she would share with the Congresswoman and her staff member who works on health care issues.

The next meeting of the Health Care Reform Forum will be on July 11th, at 6:45 pm. If you are interested in health care reform, please join us.

Karen Metcalf

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Prescription Drug Pricing

6/19/2017

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Health Care Reform Forum

Trump Says House Health Bill "Mean." That was the headline after the President met with senators last week. We agree. Now, he should act and not just talk.

In the meantime, our Health Care Reform Forum continues its series of letters to the editors on Prescription Drug Pricing.

Pharmaceutical companies continue to be the most profitable segment of our economy. The companies claim that high prices fund necessary research and development (R&D). However, 9 of the 10 top pharmaceutical companies spend much more on marketing and sales, totaling $3 billion annually to consumers and $24 billion to healthcare providers, than on R&D. The U.S. is one of only two countries in the world to permit the advertising of drugs.

The drug companies have other strategies to increase prices to prescription drugs. Most new drugs are patented, giving the manufacturer monopolistic marketing and price protection for up to 20 years. But when the patent is due to expire, companies often make a minor change in the formula, and get a new patent to maintain profits

Another strategy is to keep generic versions of the drugs off the market, sometimes by paying generic manufacturers to postpone the introduction of cheaper versions.

Another strategy is to buy the rights to an old, cheap, “niche market” drug with only one supplier, and then hike the price by several hundred percent. Patients who need that drug are hostage to that inflated price.

They also encourage the use of prescription drugs for purposes other than that for which they have been tested and approved by the FDA.

By using these monopolistic strategies, pharmaceutical companies have proven that they cannot moderate their own pricing practices. We need to tell our legislators to regulate the costs of these necessary and often life-saving medications like is done in nearly every other country.

Doug McCollum,
Rock Island

Frank Samuelson
[email protected]

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Repair and Strengthen the ACA, Not Replace It!

6/16/2017

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Health Care Reform Forum

As the Congressional effort to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act moves to the Senate, we progressives need to tell our senators to dump the draconian House bill which will cause 24 million Americans to lose their health insurance, reduce Medicaid for the most vulnerable, and give tax benefits to the wealthy and corporations (among other things). Tell your senators now to repair and strengthen the ACA, not replace it.

When the House and Senate bills move to the conference committee, we will evaluate that result and again have the opportunity to contact our representatives and senators with our opinions.

In the meantime, our Health Care Reform Forum is beginning an effort to raise awareness and understanding about a major factor in the ever-rising cost of health care: the rapidly escalating prices of prescription drugs. We have begun to submit a series of letters to the editors of the Quad City Times and the Dispatch/Argus, and we plan to include them in this newsletter. We hope they will help you to better understand this multi-faceted issue and to share this information with others. We need to tell our legislators that the pharmaceutical industry has shown that it cannot resist putting profits over people; therefore Congress must act in the public interest. Here is the first letter in this series.

PRESCRIPTON DRUG PRICING

One factor in the rising cost of health care, and therefore of health insurance premiums and copays, is the rapid escalation of prescription drug prices. Some medications have seen price increases of several hundred per cent over a few months or years. Many new drugs are priced much higher than the costs of development, testing, and bringing them to market. Protected by patents, and promoted by advertising, drug companies charge whatever the market will bear. The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most profitable in our economy.

But these escalating prices are paid for by the patients who need these treatments and by the insurance companies and government agencies that pay the bills. President Trump raised this issue in a meeting with pharmaceutical CEOs. Other politicians, Congressional committees and health care experts have also raised the alarm. Since drug companies can’t resist using all the “tricks of the trade” to raise prices and profits, only our government can bring some rationality and fairness into the system. But so far it’s all talk and no action.

One simple first step toward addressing this problem would be for Congress to change the law that forbids Medicare from negotiating prices with the drug companies. Private insurance companies, the Veterans’ Administration, and most governments around the world negotiate drug prices. Medicare should also. Tell your representatives and senators to act now to let fairness, competition, and market forces, rather than monopolistic practices, set the prices of our prescription drugs.

Frank Samuelson
[email protected]

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Skyrocketing Prescription Drug Prices

6/16/2017

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Heath Care Reform Forum

Our government has a long history of regulating prescription drugs for safety and effectiveness. We need to tell our representatives that it's time to address drug pricing. Here's why:

Wonder why health care costs in the USA are almost twice as much as they are in other developed countries? Follow the money from the pockets of the paying patients to the coffers of Big Pharma. One major reason for the higher cost of health care and insurance premiums is skyrocketing prescription drug prices.

Among the most profitable industries in the U.S. economy, pharmaceutical companies benefit from legal protections and from monopolistic and marketing practices that enable them to set prices without relation to the costs of production or a competitive marketplace.

Recently one company bought the rights to the drug Daraprim and overnight hiked the price 5000%, from $13.50 to $750. Another bought the right to sell the life-saving drug, Epinephrine, in a two pack dispenser and raised the price 650% from $94 to $608. These two examples reflect an industry wide trend that has caused loud complaints from the public and congressional committees.

In 1940, Congress created the Food and Drug Administration in response to a lethal mistake by a drug company that caused 100 people to die. The FDA now protects the public by assuring that all drugs are proven “safe and effective” before they can be marketed.

Prohibitively high prices of life-saving medications are deadly to the public. Let's tell our congressmen/women and senators to protect us by regulating the costs of pharmaceuticals so they will be available and affordable for all of us.

Clara Caldwell
Rock Island

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Raising Change for the Dick Fallow Endowment for Social Justice

6/6/2017

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Sunday, June 11th, 3 pm
9115 Turkey Hollow Road, Taylor Ridge, IL.

The Dick Fallow Endowment for Social Justice Committee is having a FUN-DRAISER to benefit the Endowment. As many of you know, the Endowment honors Dick's lifelong legacy of championing social justice causes by giving annual grants to deserving local organizations that do the same.

We hope you can join us on June 11th for an afternoon of hors d'oeuvres, drinks, and fun, all of which Dick would have loved.

If you can't attend, we'll miss you. Please see the above flyer for ways you can still help further Dick's legacy by donating to the Endowment.

Tracy and Dino Leone

309-738-3196

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Health Care Forum - Meeting with Member of Congress

Meeting with Rep. Bustos Staff - After Action Report

Prescription Drug Pricing

Hea​lth Care Reform Forum

Repair and Strengthen the ACA, Not Replace It!

Health Care Reform Forum

Skyrocketing Prescription Drug Prices

Heath Care Reform Forum

Raising Change for the Dick Fallow Endowment for Social Justice

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