Nevada senator joins healthcare advocates in call for drug pricing reform
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) helped launch the “Push for Lower Prescription Prices” campaign.
WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - On Tuesday, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) joined healthcare advocates calling for drug pricing reform.
It was for the launch of the “Push for Lower Prescription Prices” campaign.
Cortez Masto along with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) are asking their colleagues in the Senate to pass a reconciliation package before Memorial Day that includes provisions to drive down drug costs.
David Mitchell, a cancer patient, and founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, led the campaign launch. “We’re here to advance historic legislation to lower the prices of prescription drugs and change the trajectory of drug pricing policy in America,” he said.
Cortez Masto said Americans are having to make difficult choices when it comes to prescription drugs.
“No one should have to ration life saving medication or choose between paying for food and affording medicine,” Cortez Masto told the crowd from behind a podium near the Capitol steps.
“It is time to force these pharmaceutical companies to really negotiate the cost of these prescription drugs and lower them, and it’s time to give Medicare that authority to do that with these pharmaceutical companies.”
The senator’s office said Cortez Masto has co-sponsored multiple pieces of legislation dating back several years to address drug pricing concerns.
Senators and advocates said a reconciliation package should include drug pricing provisions already passed by the House.
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