By Christina van Waasbergen | Arizona Republic
Judy Wilson, an older Arizona resident with multiple sclerosis, opted not to take her medication last year because she couldn’t afford it.
“The decision to stop my medication was based on money, not medicine,” Wilson said Tuesday at a U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing hosted by U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., in Phoenix.
The hearing focused on lowering prescription drug prices for seniors.
The hourlong hearing took place against the backdrop of Kelly’s re-election campaign for the U.S. Senate, where he will face the winner of a splintered Republican primary race that remains unsettled.
It provided an opportunity for him to return to the familiar themes of the obstacles regular Arizonans face when seeking affordable health care and prescription drugs, the out-of-reach prices of some pharmaceutical drugs and the lengths some patients go to navigate high health care costs, including rationing medicine or foregoing it altogether.
During the hearing, Kelly advocated for a bill he’s backing to cap the out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $35 a month for most Americans, which recently passed the House of Representatives.
He also advocated for other legislative proposals he’s working on, including allowing Medicare to negotiate prices of certain high-cost drugs, stopping drug companies from raising prices faster than inflation and redesigning Medicare Part D to cap out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 per year.
