Kagen Acts to Lower Prescription Drug Costs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 12, 2007
Kagen Acts to Lower Prescription Drug Costs
Congressman Steve Kagen, M.D. (D-Appleton) is acting to alleviate the crushing prescription drug costs facing senior citizens today.
The House today passed sponsored by Rep. Kagen to help lower prescription drug costs for seniors by requiring Medicare to negotiate for lower prices.
The previous Congress had prohibited the government from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for lower prices. Medicare Part D, as it was written, guarantees seniors and taxpayers have higher health care costs.
Rep. Kagen is working hard to change the fiscally irresponsible law and fill the “donut hole” in the process. Kagen is sponsoring H.R. 4 which requires Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.
“Health care costs in this country are impossible for everyone – for small businesses, local and state governments, the uninsured, working families and most especially for our senior citizens,” Dr. Kagen says. “As a physician, I see and feel this crisis everyday.”
“Today in America, the price of a pill is whatever the pharmaceutical companies can get. My patients and my constituents want to know the price of a pill before they swallow it, and they wish to pay less, not more,” said Kagen. “H.R. 4 will allow our government to negotiate lower prices for their necessary and life saving prescriptions our seniors require.”
H.R. 4 is the latest piece of legislation Kagen is sponsoring to protect the quality of life for Wisconsin’s hard-working families.
In addition to lowering prescription drug prices, other legislation sponsored by Rep. Kagen – and passed by the House – will raise the minimum wage, restore integrity and fiscal discipline to the government, eliminate job-killing tax breaks for foreign companies, make America more secure by implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, provide first responders with equipment they need during emergencies, screen all cargo carried on passenger aircraft, increase port security by screening all shipping containers headed to the U.S. for nuclear materials, improve explosive detection at passenger checkpoints at airports, allocate Homeland Security funds by risk not by political favoritism, reduce the threat of nuclear and dirty bombs by strengthening control of nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, and extend funding for advances in life-saving stem cell progress.