A group of HIV/AIDS and drug pricing advocates, including many from AHF staged a protest in front of the San Diego district office of San Diego Congressman Scott Peters (D-CA, 52nd District) on Friday, September 17th to protest his vote against drug pricing reform allowing Medicare to fully negotiate drug prices with drug companies. The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted yesterday on the prescription drug pricing resulting in a 29 to 29 tie. Peters voted against the bill.
“While Democrats ran on lowering drug costs, Congressman Peters just voted for profits over people with his vote against allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices,” said Michael Weinstein, president of AHF. “Peters has been one of Congress’ largest recipients of drug industry money. He also previously introduced federal legislation in 2017 that would have severely curtailed nonprofit hospitals’ participation in the 340B program, a federally administered drug discount program that costs the government and taxpayers nothing. We protested him then and were able to help stop that terrible legislation from advancing. Peters has again placed the drug industry and its outsized profits—as well as industry contributions to his political campaigns—ahead of the interests and wellbeing of his constituents.”
AHF is committed to fighting for lower drug costs and we need your help. Click here to go to the “take action” page on aidshealth.org to see how you can get involved in AHF advocacy today.