Blog Post: Biden’s Drug List Moves America’s Patient Doomsday Clock Closer to Midnight

Last week, champagne flowed at the White House as lobbyists gathered to pat themselves on the back, thinking they pulled another one over on us. Wearing sheep’s “compassion” clothing over their wolf’s fangs. 

We knew this day was coming. Since the IRA became law about a year ago, the Biden administration has been boasting that it would release a list of price controls on innovative medicines. If you are one of the millions of patients in this country living with a rare or chronic disease that needs new and innovative treatments to keep pace with your condition, this drug list isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel, but the start of a Patient Doomsday Clock. 

Economists and health industry experts have been sounding the alarm that these unproven policies would mean fewer breakthrough treatments, reduced drug options, and more government between patients, their doctors, and the best chance for survival. This all adds up to one outcome: Americans have less control over how they manage their health.  

The insult of the IRA goes beyond its impact on American patients’ health and hope. The law exemplifies a phony compassion for patients, disguising an undemocratic policy agenda to gain more power and control for the special interests in Washington.  

This arrogance goes unchecked because they think their victims are clueless and unable to stand up to them. But patients are paying attention and are astonished at the implications of the price control policies put forth by the IRA and are standing up to this.  

Ask yourself, if they were so clever, so determined to fix real problems, then why didn’t they? With total power in Washington, they chose to mobilize the might of “a government of, by, and for the people” to go after the item with the lowest inflation – medicines. Why not “negotiate” the cost of college, the price of gas, or housing and better mental health support for veterans?  

Instead, they are going to mess around with how breakthrough medicines are discovered and developed. I need these rockstar scientists to keep discovering drugs to keep my Multiple Sclerosis (MS) subdued. Millions of other patients also need science to help them, and billions around the world get their hope from the miracles of medical innovation happening in America. 

Sadly, all this noise on August 29 only reminds me that the patient’s Doomsday Clock is ticking closer to midnight for the most vulnerable Americans. For all the power in Washington, they see political profit from choking a pipeline of hope for patients and think that is the solution to Americans’ healthcare problems? Pretending they care about cost by ensuring treatments never even get to market – because there’s no drug less expensive than one that is never discovered. 

Hope of the great progress being made toward a cure for MS is dashed, but the sick joke of it is one they don’t see: that we’re all patients, were or will be. So the joke’s on them, too. The fading sounds of popping champagne corks will be of little comfort when someone they love suffers needlessly from an illness scientists were close to solving. 

Their hope was lost on the day of that announcement in a Rose Garden for no good reason. 

John Czwartacki is the Founder and Chairman of the patient advocacy organization Survivors For Solutions.