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DEFENDING REFORMS FROM BIG PHARMA—MASSPIRG Legislative Director Deirdre Cummings, alongside State Sen. Mark Montigny (New Bedford), urges lawmakers to keep the Rx Gift Ban in place. MASSPIRG is committed to helping keep health costs down for consumers.
BEING A WATCHDOG ON HEALTH CARE REFORM
America’s health care system is structured to profit the drug industry, insurance companies, and medical specialists, not better health outcomes for you.
The Affordable Care Act was an historic step toward getting health care costs under control, but more needs to be done to protect its solvency as demographics change and costs continue to rise. We can do this without undermining the fundamental goal of ensuring all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care.
In Massachusetts, which paved the path for the federal law with our 2006 reforms, our priority now is to make sure state leaders focus on how on to deliver lower costs and better quality for consumers.
The cost of inaction to Massachusetts’ families would be overwhelming:
• If we don’t get our leaders to squeeze out the health care system's costly inefficiencies, the full cost of premiums will climb to $26,069 for families and $8,845 for individual employer-sponsored insurance by 2016.
• With these projected increases, the cost of a family health insurance policy will be equal to 41.2% of median household income.
To ensure Massachusetts continues to develop leading models of reform, MASSPIRG joined Campaign for Better Care, a broad coalition of organizations to tackle some of the biggest challenges left in health reform — lowering the cost while promoting more coordinated, efficient and better care.
Issue updates
The maker of Humira, the world’s best-selling drug, faces a new legal challenge over alleged anticompetitive tactics. Monday, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) filed an amicus brief in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that AbbVie’s strategies of reverse payment settlements and creating “patent thickets” have delayed the entry of biologically similar generic drugs (biosimilars) onto the market, costing Americans billions of dollars.
I testified today in favor of An Act to ensure prescription drug cost transparency and affordability (H. 1133/S. 706) that will reduce the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs, make pharmaceutical costs and pricing more transparent, and as a result reduce the cost of health care.
[Boston]: While many Americans struggle to afford their prescription drugs, a new survey of retail prices of commonly-prescribed medications found patients can save hundreds, even thousands of dollars in some cases by shopping around at pharmacies within their communities.
While many Americans struggle to afford their prescription drugs, a new survey of retail prices of commonly-prescribed medications found patients can save hundreds, even thousands of dollars in some cases by shopping around at pharmacies within their communities.
Cost containment is is a critical first step in addressing the deep faults in our health care system - it's hard to image fixing problems of access if we continue to be charged $15 for a Tylenol pill or $1,000 for a toothbrush. It turns out that overpriced equipment repair helps add to those inflated costs.
Health Care | U.S. PIRG
Searching for common ground on caregiving
In our politically divided time, it's difficult to see where we can find common ground. But the need to value the work of caring for our loved ones is one such place. PIRG Senior Director of New Economy Campaigns Evan Preston explains in his blog, "Toward Consensus on Caregiving."
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