Health advocacy groups oppose groups against drug price negotiations – Herb Weiss

by Herb Weiss, contributing writer on aging issues

As supporters of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) celebrate the one-year anniversary of the passage of this historic legislation, health advocacy groups gathered last week in Austin, Texas, Washington, D.C., Chicago and New York City to publicly oppose and call on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) along with drugmakers to withdraw their lawsuits to block the IRA’s drug price negotiation provisions.  They instead called for the immediate lowering of the prices of brand-name pharmaceuticals.

At press time, Merck & Co., Bristol Myers Squibb Company, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Astellas Pharma US, PhaRMA, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have filed lawsuits arguing that the price negotiation program is unconstitutional and violates the Constitution’s separation of powers clause by giving the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) discretion over a maximum fair price for any given drug selected for negotiation.  These lawsuits charge that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) price controls would force drug manufacturers to pull back on developing new drugs, jeopardizing medical breakthroughs for individuals with life-threatening and chronic illnesses.

The filed legal suits come weeks before Sept. 1 when CMS is scheduled to publish a list of the first 10 drugs that will be subject to negotiations. By Oct. 1, the drug companies must declare whether they will participate in negotiations or face steep financial penalties for not negotiating. The lower negotiated prices will not take effect until 2026.

Public Citizen, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit consumer advocacy group along with other health care advocacy groups including Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, Protect Our Care, Families USA and Doctors for America and AARP and the AARP Foundation have filed amicus briefs supporting HHS’ position that the motion for a preliminary injunction requested by the Chamber and the other plaintiffs in that case should be denied.

At the Washington, D.C. press conference, Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen delivered a petition signed by 150,000 individuals to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce demanding that all court suits be dropped. 

Public Citizen, Social Security Works, and more than 70 health and consumer organizations also sent letters to the prescription drug corporations, demanding those corporations drop their lawsuits and begin negotiating lower drug prices.  The letter cited how drug corporations routinely charge Medicare beneficiaries in the United States twice or more of what they charge patients in other large, wealthy countries – even in cases where U.S. taxpayers supported the drug’s development.

“It’s a disgrace that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is fronting for Big Pharma [against the interests of the mom-and-pop businesses it purports to represent,” said Robert Weissman. “Patients, small businesses, large businesses, state and local governments, and the federal government all have a shared interest in curtailing Big Pharma price gouging, as the Inflation Reduction Act’s drug price negotiation provisions will do.”

“The lawsuits filed by the large pharmaceutical corporations to overturn Medicare drug price negotiation authority demonstrates that there is no bottom to big pharma’s greed, charges Max Richtman, President and CEO of the Washington, DC-based National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. “It isn’t enough that revenue to U.S. drug corporations was over $1 trillion in 2022.  It isn’t enough that big pharma benefits from the $54 billion spent in taxpayer dollars per year on pharmaceutical research. It isn’t enough that the 2017 Trump tax cut bill lowered average tax rates of the big pharmaceutical companies by more than 40 percent. It isn’t enough that pharma’s profit margin is 15 percent to 20 percent while the average profits of the nation’s largest 500 corporations ranged between 4 percent to 9 percent,” he says.   

“Americans have had enough of big pharma’s greed – and while I am sure the price gougers won’t stop putting profits before people – we urge the industry to drop this unconscionable lawsuit against the authority to negotiate prescription drug prices,” he adds.

“Big drug companies and their allies are fighting furiously to stop Medicare from negotiating drug prices so they can keep charging Americans the highest prices in the world. Allowing these distractions to derail implementation of the law would not be in the public’s interest, especially for older adults who have waited far too long for affordable drug prices. Medicare drug price negotiation represents a historic opportunity to access lifesaving drugs for millions of Americans at a time when they need them the most,” said William Alvarado Rivera, Sr. VP for Litigation at AARP Foundation.

“Pharmaceutical corporations have long shown that they care about nothing but profits. So, it is not surprising that they are attempting to use the courts to subvert the will of the people and block Medicare from using its bulk purchasing power to get better prices,” said Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works. “The law is incredibly clear, as is the will of the American people: Medicare drug price negotiations are legal and incredibly popular. Everybody wins except the greedy CEOs who see their drug price extortion rackets shut down.”

Protests Call for the Immediate Dropping of Court Suits 

On Aug. 16, 2023, in Washington, D.C., the “Drop Your Suits, Drop Your Prices,” a press conference/rally was held outside the headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., and in New York City outside of the offices of Jones Day, and outside the Federal Courthouse in Austin where some of the drug makers are launching their legal attacks on Medicare, and at the offices of Astellas in Chicago.

At the Washington, DC press conference, a digital billboard advertising on a parked box truck set the stage for the event. In big bold red and gold letters the message read: “The Chamber of Commerce and Big Pharma are suing to keep your drug prices high.  They must drop their lawsuits and lower drug prices.”

Public Citizen’s Weissman kicked off the noon time press conference, stating, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce claims to represent small businesses but these businesses are bearing the brunt of paying for the high price of drugs.  Because of this, 3 in 10 Americans are rationing their drugs, he says. 

Weissman asked why is the U. S Chamber of commerce opposing the interests of small and large businesses? He charges that the nation’s largest lobbying group for the nation’s businesses is “is shamefully fronting for Big Pharma and companies that have an interest in overturning this law” that requires Big Pharma to negotiate with Medicare on drug prices. “But we are here today to tell Big Pharma were not going to let you get away with it,” he says.

“We’re going to win. We’re going to win the in the courts. We’re going to win on the streets. This price negotiation is going to go forward. It’s the beginning not the end in getting big Pharma price gouging under control, making sure medicines are affordable for everyone who needs in this country,” predicts Weissman.

Like all the speakers, 22-year-old Jacqueline Garibay called on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, PhaRMA, and the other pharmaceutical companies to immediately drop their lawsuits to lower drug prices.  She was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis, an autoimmune disorder that primarily affects her spine and has spread to most of her major joints. Without expensive biologic medications, Garibay’s spine could fuse and leave her unable to walk by the time she graduates from George Washington University.  

In the last four years since her diagnosis, doctors have put her on four biologic drugs, each one with a price tag ranging from $5,000 to $13,000 every month, trying to find one that will work for her.  There have been times when Garibay has had to forego refilling her prescriptions because of financial difficulties resulting from having to pay for her rent, groceries, and tuition at the same time. “It’s “absolutely terrifying,” she says, fearing that without taking these medications she will risk losing the ability to walk.  

“The new drug price reforms are projected to save patients like her tens of billions of dollars. “It will help me have a future I can afford, a future where I can pursue all my dreams without being financially undermined for the sake of my health condition,” she says.

Laura Marston, a 41-year-old diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes over 27 years ago at age 14, has seen the price of her insulin soar from the price of a vial for $ 21 to over $300.  “No vial costs Eli Lilly less than $5 to make,” says the resident of Washington, D.C. 

Marston picked up her insulin prescription from the pharmacy a week ago. The price for a three-month supply of seven vials that will enable her to live was $ 2,267.99. “That’s immoral, that’s inhuman and that’s flat out wrong,” she said.

“My message to Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi and the Chamber of Commerce is lower your insulin prices, or we will do it for you in the form of federal price caps legislation. The 7 million Americans who rely on insulin to level not-stop raising our voices until we no longer have to choose our money or our lives,” she says.

Arthur Blair, a patient advocate for Spaces in Action, described how a debilitating disease forced him to quick his job. What do you do when you don’t have money, not even enough to pay for high cost of drugs,” he asked. 

“Pharma has proven with this latest action [attempting to block the negotiation of drug prices] that they put unreasonable profits before the people. They don’t mind knowing that people are done because they are unable to obtain prescription drugs that would easily save their life and eliminate easier suffering,” charges Blair.

According to HHS, as of June 2021, about 48 million Medicare beneficiaries are currently enrolled in plans that provide the Medicare Part D drug benefit. Last year, Congress came together begin putting the brakes on spiraling drug costs by passing legislation that allows Medicare to negotiate for lower prices.  

Currently drug prices are higher in the U.S. than other countries because Medicare doesn’t negotiate prices with drug makers like other countries do. Because the practice of negotiating drug prices was banned in 2003 under the law that created the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit, 77 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries pay more for prescription drugs than these nine countries — Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (This was documented by a 2021 study of the Rand Corporation.) 

Although the “Drop Your Suits, Drop Your Prices” press conferences held around the nation drew small crowds, the importance of these gatherings is the message they sent to the nation, that is “It’s time to stop blocking a law that puts money into the pockets of seniors instead of the bank account of drug makers.”

To read it’s full complaint, go to  https://www.uschamber.com/assets/documents/Complaint-Dayton-Area-Chamber-of-Commerce-v.-Becerra-S.D.-Ohio.pdf.

To watch the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_8WHFv7oL4

To read why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to challenge drug price negotiations, go to https://www.uschamber.com/lawsuits/why-were-suing-hhs-and-cms-to-challenge-illegal-price-controls.

To read an amicus brief submitted by Public Citizen, Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, Protect Our Care, Families U.S.A and Doctors for American, supporting HHS’s position that the motion for a  preliminary injunction requested by the Chamber and the other plaintiffs in that case should be denied, go to https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/35-1-Proposed-amicus-brief.pdf.

To read AARP and AARP Foundation’s full amicus brief, go to https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/aarp_foundation/2023/dayton-area-chamber-of-commerce-v-becerra-brief.pdf.

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Herb Weiss, LRI -12, is a Pawtucket-based writer who has covered aging, health care and medical issues for over 43 years.  To purchase his books, Taking Charge: Collected Stories on Aging Boldly and a sequel, compiling weekly published articles, go to herbweiss.com.