Republicans Block Effort To Lower Prescription Drug Prices For Americans

The Republican Party showed who they are loyal to this week when they blocked a bill in the Senate that would have led to lower drug prices for Americans. The legislation would have allowed Medicare to pay what the Veterans Administration pays for prescription drugs, lowering the costs for millions of Americans. But Republicans can't have that because they rely too much on Big Pharma cash. Farron Cousins discusses this.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Republicans in the Senate made it clear this week that they do not care that American citizens are getting crushed with massive prescription drug bills. They do not care that Americans pay a higher markup for our prescription drugs than any other industrialized country. And they prove this by in committee blocking a piece of legislation from even coming to a vote, to move it out of committee that would've allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Now, of course, this individual piece of legislation was in fact, originally part of the build back better act, but thanks to mansion and cinema and every single Republican not supporting it, they are attempting to break apart the pieces of build back better and pass them individually. The prescription drug negotiation thing was one of them and it would've basically cut prescription drugs for people in Medicare in half, because they would then be paying what the veterans affairs, uh, folks pay, what veterans pay, uh, because the VA is in fact allowed to negotiate drug prices.

No other government agency is that's what this legislation would've done. But Republican Senator Mike CreER blocked it not happening. Done died in committee. You would say all because they take too much money from big pharma. That's what this is. People die in this country. People die in country probably every single day because they cannot afford their medications. And yes, that includes a lot of people on Medicare because obviously Medicare is for the eldest generation in our country. People who are on severely fixed incomes and they can't make ends meet, having to pay for this very expensive, you know, oftentimes life sustaining medication. I don't know how many of you watching this have ever had to take any kind of heart medication, you know, blood pressure medications, obviously diabetes, medications, insulin, the price of, of all of those things. Because again, they are life sustaining are absolutely through the roof and that's not to mention of course, medication for, you know, thyroid disease, which happens.

Parkinson's, Alzheimer's all of these things and cancers, of course, that start developing later in age, all of these things are very expensive and all of these things make a huge profit for drug companies here in the United States. And they do it because they can, they do it because they know they've got people like Mike Creo sitting in the Senate. That's gonna make sure that even if it's only for a small subset of the American public, we are not gonna lower prescription drugs. Cuz again, this legislation would've only affected people on Medicare 65 and older, right. I would still pay astronomical prices for, for my medications. I pay $181 per month for a 30 day supply of my, uh, steroid

Inhaler that I have to take once a day,

$181 a month with insurance. Oh, but don't worry because once I hit my deductible each year, that price drops from 180 1 to

One 50.

My other regular are rescue asthma inhalers actually not even covered

By my insurance anymore, even though albuterol's been around for decades. So yeah, that's fun

For me.

I got two kids with nut allergies. That's two EpiPens that expire every

Nine months. So I'm buying

'em twice a year, 650 bucks a pop For the epi junior because sometimes the insurance

Doesn't cover

The, uh, the other one and I forget the name of it cuz we had it and then they didn't. But

Whatever the point is, people die And Republicans in the Senate just made it clear. They're okay with letting people die because they can't afford medication. As long as it means the profits are big. Pharma

Are protected.