Today, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) published an op-ed in US News & World Report on the continuing struggles of Americans who have a right to safe and affordable prescription medications.
As he writes, “The American people are sick and tired of getting ripped off by the pharmaceutical industry which, next to Wall Street, is one of the most powerful and greedy forces in our country.”
He highlights the challenges of one of his constituents who said that ‘her family couldn’t sleep in their car after losing their house because they had to sell the car, and her wedding ring, just to pay for their prescription drugs.’
He poses the following questions in the piece:
How can it be that Americans can walk into a drugstore and find that the prices they are paying for their prescription drugs can double, triple or quadruple, literally overnight?
How is it that in Canada the same medications manufactured by the same companies, sold in the same bottles, are available for a fraction of the price that we pay in the United States?
Sen. Sanders blames the pharmaceutical industry for the exorbitantly high prices, and continuing health crisis in this country. Together with Rep. Elijah Cummings and Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Casey, Sen. Sanders has introduced legislation – the Affordable and Safe Prescription Drug Importation Act – to allow importation of low-cost medications from licensed and legitimate online pharmacies in Canada and other countries. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that implementing the legislation would save the U.S. government more than $6 billion over the next decade. Sen. Sanders urges Congress to ‘have the courage to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and lower the outrageously high prices the American people are paying for the medicine they need.’ The full op-ed can be accessed here.