ADVOCACY WORKS!!!
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Happy Friday Advocates
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ADVOCACY WORKS AND IT MATTERS
If you wondered whether your voice matters. Here’s proof it does.
GAO Recommends Medicare Investigate Pharma Bribery
Previously we have written about the rebates and bribery that goes on between drug makers, pharmacy benefit managers, and insurance companies. It is a situation designed to line their pockets by taking money out of ours. But here is some good news.
First some background. Medicare is administered by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Original Medicare does not cover prescriptions. Congress created a program whereby private insurance companies could sell prescription drug policies to Medicare recipients. This was a giant corporate giveaway to the drug makers and PBMS and insurance companies by the government because the government was forbidden, by law, to negotiate Medicare drug prices. The less they spend the more they make. So rebates to the insurance companies from drug makers or middlemen will lower their costs. Remember that an insurance plan’s formulary is the list of drugs they cover. As an aside, the senator who put that non negotiation amendment into the Medicare Part D bill later left the senate and became head of Pharma, the drug lobbying organization.
The US government just issued a report a few days ago recommending that Medicare investigate what the effect of rebates on Medicare Part D drug plans are and the medications they offer and how prices are affected (especially for consumers).
According to the report, “The Administrator of CMS should monitor the effect of rebates on plan sponsor formulary design and on Medicare and beneficiary spending to assess whether rebate practices are likely to substantially discourage enrollment by certain beneficiaries.”
The GAO also found that rebates do influence formulary design in ways that could affect beneficiary access for certain drugs. This is not in the patient’s interest, it is in the interest of the drug maker and the insurance company.
Now Medicare can’t negotiate many drug prices but monitoring rebate and expenditure data would not require CMS to interfere with negotiations between plan sponsors and manufacturers, and it could provide CMS and Congress insight on this apparent nefarious graft.
Congress has been investigating this kind of behavior for non-Medicare insurance plans for a while but has not yet taken action.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not concur with GAO’s recommendation and so far are not investigating this kind of cheating.
We and so many others have raised our voices about Big Pharma cheating and the GAO listened and investigated. Advocacy works.
Now let’s get Medicare to take action.
ACTION
Here are the email addresses of the director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, and the HHS director, Xavier Becerra.
Chiquita.Brooks-LaSure@cms.hhs.gov, xavier.becerra@hhs.gov
Let’s ask them to follow the GAO recommendation and investigate how drug rebates affect formularies and prices. You can cut and paste the email below and send it directly to them at their email addresses. Make sure to put your name in the email and your city and state.
to: Chiquita.Brooks-LaSure@cms.hhs.gov, xavier.becerra@hhs.gov
Subject: Follow the GAO advice - Investigate the Effect of Drug Rebates on Medicare
I have just learned that the GAO has recommended that you investigate the effect of drug rebates on drug formularies and prices. Here is a link to their report - https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105270.pdf. The drug industry has been jacking up prices and bribing Pharmacy Benefit Managers and Insurance companies to place their drugs on formularies with hefty rebates and increasing prices to the consumer to do it. The GAO report finds similar behavior in Medicare.
I want you to take the advice of the GAO and see what effect these rebates have on Medicare and report to the public your findings. Thank you.
{NAME}
{CITY, STATE}
STOP THE COMSTOCK ACT ATTACK ON ABORTION
(S. Rogan/Rogan’s List)) Right wing attacks on access to abortion medication have centered on the Comstock Act, an 1873 law that makes it a crime to deliver “obscene, lewd or lascivious material” through the mail. Whether or not provisions of this act that discuss abortion and birth control can still be applied to legal, FDA-approved pills will be fought out in the courts, but we don’t have to wait for judges to weigh in to act.
ACTION
You can use Resistbot to send the email below to your Senators and Congressional Representative by texting SIGN PSZDOB to 50409. or you can phone/emailthem.
“I am your constituent and and I want you to support and pass the Freedom to Decide Act (H.Con.Res.33). It would make law the current Justice Department policy that access to medication abortion is legal and the Comstock Act does not apply. When you have the opportunity repeal the Comstock Act too. Thank you.”
Reproductive Healthcare Good News
Planned Parenthood Wisconsin has resumed abortion procedures (link)
This story is a little surprising since almost everyone viewed the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization put back into effect an 1849 law that was interpreted by Planned Parenthood and other providers as banning all abortions except in situations where the mother could die. However, a judge in Dane County, Wisconsin, has ruled that the law in question does not actually ban consensual abortions. Happy surprise!!
RESOURCES
Healthcare Advocacy (Us)
Website
Our Newsletter resources including reproductive healthcare
Healthcare Advocacy Reading List
Find My Elected Officials
Contact the White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Contact State and Federal Representatives
https://www.commoncause.org/find-your-representative/addr/
Important Healthcare Resources
League of Women Voters Healthcare Reform Toolkit
Organizations to Contact
National Nurses United Medicare4All
Physicians for a National Health Plan
Reproductive Health
NARAL - Pro Choice America
Charley. NARAL’s abortion resource
Planned Parenthood
Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline has references about where to procure abortion medications. They also assist women in the process of self managed abortion or miscarriage by phone or text and will respond in an hour. Details and hours of operation at their website.
United State of Women Reproductive health page (bottom of the page) has important resources such as medical support, access to Telehealth, prescriptions by mail, and legal support references.
Practice careful communications - The Digital Defense Fund has a number of tips to keep texts, calls, and internet use private. Here is their site.
If you need financial help with an abortion try abortionfunds.org