Events Calendar

Congressman Joe Courtney: Community Conversation on The Lower Drug Costs Now Act

November 06, 2019
10:00 AM to 12:00 PM

Groton Senior Center, 102 Newtown Road, Groton, CT

From Congressman Joe Courtney;

Last week, my colleagues and I on the House Education and Labor Committee voted to approve H.R. 3, The Lower Drug Costs Now Act. This transformative legislation makes long-overdue changes to the prescription drug pricing system so that Americans can finally get a better deal on the cost of medication, and our vote to approve the bill in Committee last week sets it up for a final vote by the full House of Representatives.

To highlight the bill here at home, and to hear stories from 2nd District Residents, I will be hosting a Community Conversation on Wednesday November 6th, 10am at the Groton Senior Center (102 Newtown Rd. Groton, CT). This event will feature some of Connecticut’s leading voices on this issue – Nora Duncan, State Director for AARP; Judy Stein, Executive Director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy; and Laura Hoch, Advocacy Manager of the National MS Society.

The goals of the legislation are broad:

• Ends the ban on Medicare negotiating directly with the drug companies, and creates powerful new tools to bring drug companies to the table to agree to real price reductions, while ensuring seniors never lose access to the prescriptions they need;
• Makes the lower drug prices negotiated by Medicare available to all Americans, including those with private insurance, not just Medicare beneficiaries;
• Stops drug companies from profiting off Americans while charging other countries less for the same drugs, limiting the maximum price for any negotiated drug to be in line with the average price in countries like ours;
• Creates a new, $2,000 out-of-pocket limit on prescription drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries, and reverses years of price hikes above inflation across thousands of drugs in Medicare;
• Reinvests in innovation and the search for new cures and treatments, using some of the savings from lowering drug prices to reinvest billions of dollars in the search for new breakthrough treatments and cures at NIH.

I hope you can lend your voice to the conversation, and I look forward to seeing you next Wednesday. If you have any questions on the event please call my Norwich District Office at 860-886-0139.

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