SFS Statement on the First Medicare Drugs to be “Negotiated”

August 29, 2023 – The nonpartisan patient advocacy group, Survivors for Solutions, started by John “CZ” Czwartacki, a patient who has managed his MS for 30 years, provided a patient perspective on CMS’s release of the first ten drugs subject to price negotiations authorized by the IRA: 

“While Washington may celebrate the drug list announcement as part of a decades-long push control of healthcare, patients should fear it. It means limited medication options, more bureaucrats in your health decisions, and fewer future cutting-edge treatments. This White House sees Americans who struggle when they get sick and respond by making it more difficult to get well. It’s sick.  

“This law has already slowed R&D investment, disrupted research into cures, and has put the most ill at the most risk. The reason why this law kills innovation is simple: it allows them to claim to be for lower drug prices.  A cure never found is only paid for in lives lost. They have one thing right: The IRA is historic because it marks the first time in history that politicians purposely took steps to slow humanity’s search for the end of illness and set the Patient Doomsday Clock that much closer to midnight.”