Friday, Aug. 9, 2019 | 2 a.m.
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As he does every August, Brian Greenspun is taking some time off and is turning over his Where I Stand column to others. Today’s guest columnist is U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev.
Congressman Steven Horsford, D-Nev., responds to a question during an editorial board meeting at the Las Vegas Sun offices in Henderson Thursday, Aug. 1, 2019.
Pamela from Pahrump has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which despite being progressive and incurable can be managed with the right diagnosis and treatment.
Sadly, though, Pamela can no longer afford the three inhalers that she depends on to get through the day. She also cannot afford the oxygen tank she needs to be able to breathe. The quality of her life has deteriorated — it’s hard to do anything useful when you can’t breathe.
And then there is Joy from Las Vegas. Joy’s husband is a diabetic and has multiple sclerosis. The cost of his prescription for insulin went from nothing to $110 a month. The couple can’t afford to refill it. And that’s to say nothing of the cost of his prescriptions to manage his MS — a long-lasting disease that can affect the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. It can cause problems with vision, balance, muscle control and basic bodily functions. The medications he needs to function on a daily basis are also expensive.
Joy herself has prescriptions for asthma and other health complications that cost an additional $190 per month. She told me this is all too much for a retired person to afford on Social Security.
Prescription drug costs are sky high, and people like Pamela and Joy are hurting.
These high drug prices are forcing Nevadans to have to choose between refilling a life-saving medication they need and paying their gas bill, or being able to eat every day. That’s not a choice any one of us should have to make. And these costs are especially tough on seniors and Nevadans living on a fixed-income.
That is unacceptable. We live in the richest country in the world. No one should be skipping pills so they can stretch their medication out a bit further.
I ran for Congress to take on this issue and it’s deeply personal to me.
Adjusting for inflation, an average American family spent roughly $90 per year on prescription drugs in 1960, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Today, the same American family would spend roughly $1,200.
Take, for instance, insulin. Since 1922, insulin has been used to treat diabetes. But nearly 100 years later, diabetics in my district are still paying thousands of dollars for their insulin or are forced to place high risk bets and seeing if they can survive without it.
A Medicare beneficiary in my district with a 25 percent co-insurance requirement could incur up to approximately $1,270 in out-of-pocket costs for a yearly supply of a popular diabetes drug like Novolog Flexpen.
And for Nevadans without insurance, the problem of drug pricing is all the more disheartening. Uninsured diabetes patients in my congressional district pay an average of $646 per month for their insulin.
I began putting the wheels in motion to find a solution to the drug pricing problem this year by introducing the Spike Act, bipartisan legislation to stop pharmaceutical industry price gouging by requiring them to justify their large price hikes. That legislation passed the House Ways & Means Committee on a unanimous, bipartisan vote of 40-0.
I also helped to pass a package of seven bills in House Resolution 987, the Strengthening Health Care and Lowering Prescription Drug Costs Act. Three of those bills aim to lower prescription drug prices by bringing generic drugs to market more quickly — putting a stop to a common and illegal practice of prescription drug manufacturers in which they “pay-for-delay,” and bribe generic manufacturers to delay bringing cheaper drugs to market.
Additionally, I have co-sponsored the Medicare X Choice Act, which would allow the secretary of health and human services to negotiate drug prices through Medicare Part D. As the largest buyer of prescription drugs in the world, the people of the United States should be represented in the drug negotiation process. This bill is a step in the right direction to remove corporate greed from the drug pricing equation and put the pricing of prescription drugs in the hands of the people who need them.
I have also introduced legislation to stabilize the Affordable Care Act, reduce health care costs, and protect the 1.2 million Nevadans with preexisting conditions like diabetes, cancer and heart disease. In February, I introduced legislation to ban “junk” insurance plans — short-term plans that allow insurers to turn away sick people and refuse to pay for essential services like prescription medications and pregnancy care.
The Affordable Care Act still has room for improvement. Just last month, I voted on and helped to pass legislation to eliminate the Cadillac tax — an exorbitant tax that would’ve imposed a 40 percent tax on high-premium employer-sponsored health care plans. For many working families, necessary medical treatment remains tragically unaffordable due to exorbitant out of pocket costs and deductibles. The Cadillac tax would have worsened this crisis of affordability.
We have to do better. Congress needs to take action. I will continue to urge my colleagues to do so because health care is a right, not a privilege, worth fighting for.
Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., was re-elected in 2018 to the state’s 4th Congressional District seat, which he had held from 2013 to 2015.
