End Big Pharma Price Gouging

I learned what a broken drug market does to a family by watching it nearly destroy mine. When I was a junior in college, my father — an immigrant and a disabled veteran — almost died. A priest read him his last rites. He survived, but the system had already done its damage: to manage his pain, it had put him on opioids, and he’d become addicted.

So I took a job in finance — the one with the biggest signing bonus I could find — so I could help my father, support my family, and move them to Jacksonville, Florida, where my dad could get care at the Mayo Clinic. That’s where he finally got free of the opioids. I like to say, and it’s the truth, that I met my father for the first time when I was 20 years old. Not everyone gets that chance. Most families never do.

I also remember the pharmacy counter — my dad asking the pharmacist to cut his pills in half so they’d last longer, or quietly deciding which medicine he just wouldn’t bring home that month because we couldn’t afford it all. I’ve heard the same story all over this district: people across CA-04 who ration their prescriptions or choose between the medicines they need, because every year the price creeps a little higher. No one should have to ration the medicine that keeps them alive. Millions of Americans do it anyway, every single month.

Here’s the truth most politicians won’t say plainly: the same pill, from the same company, out of the same factory, costs an American two, three, sometimes ten times what it costs a family in Germany, France, or Canada. Same medicine. Different price. And we’re the ones paying full freight.

Every other wealthy nation sits down and negotiates one honest price on behalf of all its people. Ours refuses to — so the drug companies take their profits out of us instead. America is bankrolling the world’s medicine cabinet, and your family is getting the bill. That’s not the fault of the countries driving a hard bargain for their people. It’s the fault of the politicians here who won’t drive one for ours — because the industry that profits from our silence is the same industry writing their checks.

And it’s all one rigged system. Big Pharma gives more money to politicians than it pays in taxes — and that money buys the loopholes that let it dodge those taxes and block the reforms that would bring prices down.

So they gouge you at the counter, bill your tax dollars through Medicare, post record profits, and pay almost nothing back. They’ll tell you those high prices fund lifesaving research. Some do — but far too much funds stock buybacks, executive bonuses, and the lobbying that protects the racket. That’s not innovation. That’s a few people getting rich off the sick.

But here’s what gives me hope: this is a problem we already know how to solve. Every other wealthy nation refuses to let its people be gouged for the medicine they need — and their scientists still cure diseases. Get the money out of the way, and we can do the same. No family should ever again have to cut a pill in half, or wait until they’re 20 to meet their own father. That future is a choice we’re one honest Congress away from making.