U.S. Chamber Fights For Access To Safe and Affordable Prescription Drugs

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States Chamber of Commerce today joined with more than 20 other major organizations and businesses, including employers, hospitals, and health plans to form the Rx Benefits Coalition to fight for policies that ensure consumers' access to safe and affordable prescription drugs.

"Employers are in the midst of multi-year, double-digit health care inflation," said Kate Sullivan, the U.S. Chamber's health policy director. "Prescription drug costs are a major factor in that increase, due largely to greater use of breakthrough therapies that reduce the need for extensive hospitalizations and health services."

Employers have increasingly turned to market-based prescription drug services that reduce drug costs, provide customer convenience, and increase patients' access to new therapies. These services use coordination techniques that significantly improve patient safety by warning against dangerous interactions of drugs prescribed by different doctors and tracking patient compliance and outcomes.

"As legislators in the states and in Congress consider proposals to restrict market-based options, costs inevitably rise and employers will opt out of their drug benefits for seniors," said Sullivan. "The new coalition will work to protect worker and retiree access to prescription drugs."

Because employers voluntarily provide benefits for just over half of Medicare enrollees who have prescription drug coverage, the already high cost of proposals to add a drug benefit to the program get much more expensive should employers exit this role. "Many politicians are counting on employers to partner in some way with Medicare to continue their retiree drug programs, but this proposition will be off the table if employers lack the tools to do so in cost-effective manner," Sullivan warned.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world's largest business federation, representing more than three million businesses and organizations of every size, sector and region.

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02-25