Statement from Margarida Jorge, campaign director for Lower Drug Prices Now, on Senate Republicans vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court: 

“Today’s vote puts Americans one step closer to losing access to affordable health care, including access to affordable medicines that millions need to stay alive. No one in America wants to find themselves seriously ill and unable to see a doctor or get the medicines they need   to get better or take care of their families, especially in the middle of a pandemic.

Yet Senate Republicans’ actions, in contrast to every promise President Trump made about protecting people with pre-existing conditions and lowering drug prices, will drive up the cost of coverage and prescriptions — particularly for seniors — right when they can least afford it. Packing the Supreme Court with another anti-Affordable Care Act justice takes us backward, laying the groundwork for repealing the ACA on November 10th, when the court will hear a lawsuit to once again overthrow the law and reinstate the insurers’ power to deny, delay and overcharge for health coverage. Provisions of the ACA that lowered the cost of prescription drugs for seniors, saving them nearly $26 billion through 2017 will also be reversed, driving up costs for seniors while giving nearly $3 billion a year in tax breaks to pharmaceutical corporations.

In the middle of a pandemic, we need our leaders to be doing everything they can to make sure that everyone, everywhere has access to the health care and medicines they need, without having to worry about cost. Instead, Senate Republicans and President Trump are doubling down on protecting pharmaceutical profits and tax breaks while leaving everyone else at the mercy of drug corporations price-gouging.”

BACKGROUND

Overturning the Affordable Care Act would have dire consequences for people who need affordable prescription medicines:

• The ACA provides discounts on medicines to seniors in Medicare and closed the Medicare Part D “donut hole” coverage gap that for years had forced seniors to pay 100% out of pocket for medicine. The ACA saved more than 11 million Medicare beneficiaries over $26 billion on prescription drugs – an average of $2,272 per beneficiary, between 2010 and 2016.
• The ACA made coverage for prescription medicines an essential health benefit, one of ten services that are now mandatory in individual and small group insurance policies.
• The ACA made some medicines like vaccines and birth control available to millions at no cost through the no-cost preventive care features of the law. Before the ACA, many people had to pay out of pocket for these basic medicines or couldn’t get access to prescriptions at all because they didn’t have coverage or access to a doctor.