Point of View: Congress must liberate us from drug corporations’ price gouging

Thanks to new leadership in Congress, a new vaccine against COVID-19, and front-line American workers, there’s a lot to celebrate this summer. But not for everyone. People struggling to afford prescription medicines continue to be captives to drug corporations’ price gouging. 

As a Korean War veteran getting prescriptions through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), I don’t have to worry about the high price of medicines. I enlisted in the Navy at 17 and served in the Korean War aboard the USS Wisconsin battleship spotting enemy aircraft. After serving for three years and nine months, I was discharged and began a career working for Ford Automobiles.  Thanks to my union and to the VHA, I’ve had access to the healthcare I need pretty consistently. 

But that’s not the case for many other veterans including 117,000 in Florida who have no health coverage at all. Florida has one of the highest numbers of veterans in the country, and is also one of the dozen remaining states that have refused to expand Medicaid to cover the uninsured. Low-income veterans who don’t qualify for VHA coverage and can’t afford private coverage have no options in our state. Many have to go without coverage or medicine despite their service to our country. 

The ridiculously high price of prescriptions in the United States put millions of Americans at risk.  As long as drug corporations can hike prices at will, Americans have no choice but to pay two to four times  more for medicines in the United States than people in other countries. 

For veterans, going without health care is especially hard because many have more complicated health care needs because of their service-related injuries and health conditions. Many service members face occupational hazards like exposure to chemicals and environmental conditions, hearing loss, musculoskeletal injuries, and traumatic brain injuries. Veterans also  experience mental illness and post-traumatic stress at higher rates compared to the rest of the population. The high suicide rates among post 9/11 veterans testify to increased need for treatment of PTSD, depression and other disorders. Once veterans get stateside, they need treatments that can help them recover and move on to a positive future for themselves and their families. 

Congress should take real action to finally lower drug prices so that anyone that needs prescription medicines can afford them. For decades, drug corporations have been raising prices much faster than the rate of inflation, making them the most profitable industry in America, while millions of patients are forced to skip doses, ration their meds, go into debt or even forgo treatment because they can't afford medicines. 

As a patient at the VHA, I know it doesn’t have to be this way. Congress could use the VHA and other programs like Medicaid and the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Tricare program as models for implementing price negotiations in Medicare and other measures that would lower prices for everyone. President Biden pointed out earlier this year that lawmakers have been talking about  price negotiations in Medicare for years and it’s time to take action. The federal government’s own research shows that negotiating drug prices in the VHA, the DOD and Medicaid have reduced drug prices in those programs to half of what Medicare pays without direct negotiations with Pharma companies. 

There are already good proposals in Congress to enable Medicare to negotiate lower prices and then extend those prices to everyone, like the Lower Drug Costs Now Act in the House and now, new policy principles in the Senate. Both would hold drug corporations accountable for jacking up prices higher than the rate of inflation and put caps on out-of-pocket costs. That’s important for many veterans coming home--a third struggle to pay bills and get affordable healthcare. 

Americans, including millions of veterans, have already waited too long for fair prices on medicine.  Given that a majority of voters in both parties support negotiations, there’s no excuse for continued inaction. 

Years ago, when my country called on me to serve, I did my duty to help my country and support my fellow Americans. Senators Rubio and Scott and the Florida Congressional delegation should do the same by making medicines affordable for everyone. Liberating patients from the constant worry that they won’t be able to afford medicine when they get sick is the best way to give veterans true independence.

Fransetta is a veteran who lives in Wellington and President Emeritus of the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans.