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The Rising Cost of Pharmaceuticals for The Aging Population
Stephanie Lakawitch
Southern New Hampshire University
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There have been many efforts to enact an initiative that addresses the cost of
pharmaceuticals yet so far none have been successful. Senators and Congressmen have
previously tried to pass legislature to help lower the cost of prescription drugs, yet none have
been passed, as a result AARP is taking action into their own hands. In 2019 AARP launched a
national campaign called "Stop RX Greed" which calls upon federal and state lawmakers to act
upon the issue. The campaign "Stop RX Greed' is calling on Congress and state legislatures to
crack down on unfair drug pricing that often puts medications out of reach. Dana Kennedy,
director of AARP Arizona, said the average Medicare beneficiary only makes about $26,000 a
year, but chronic conditions can cost them thousands in out-of-pocket drug expenses
(Richardson, 2019).
This campaign differs from the previous efforts of legislation by publicly addressing
congressman and the president himself to act upon this issue. AARP is advertising on public
platforms for members to join them in their outcry for help from the government. AARP
announced in a statement "The goal of AARP's sustained campaign is to help drive down drug
prices for all Americans by advocating for a variety of legislative, executive and regulatory
actions at both the federal and state level (Jefferson, 2019)." In addition to addressing the
president and congress themselves AARP has created a prewritten letter for members to sign and
send in on their own behalf in hopes that increasing the volume of people concerned will speed
up any results.
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Amongst the lobbying efforts of the campaign they are pursuing the release of new
research about prescription drugs and consumer information programs to combat the multiple
factors that cause the issue of costly pharmaceuticals. AARP identifies some of the main
problems as the following, multiple middleman parties between the consumer and the
manufacturer, failure to import, weak government negotiating, endless patents of brand name
drugs, bottomless research funding. The hopes of the campaign are to "stop price gouging by
allowing Medicare and states to use their vast buying powers to negotiate for lower drug prices
and allowing state attorneys general to take legal action against drug manufacturers for excessive
drug price hikes. The advocacy group also supports:
Increasing access and affordability of prescription drugs by capping out-of-pocket costs for consumers,
: Expanding the availability of state pharmaceutical assistance programs,
Allowing states to safely import prescription drugs from other countries,
Protecting a recent Medicare improvement that helps beneficiaries with high prescription-drug costs.
Closing loopholes that allow drug manufacturers to delay or even block the development of lower-cost generics,
Ban deals that allow pharmaceutical companies to pay generic firms not to bring a competing product to market, and
Supporting laws that promote transparency by requiring drug makers to ju