| WASHINGTON, D.C. — Patients For Affordable Drugs Now announced it will extend and expand its campaign calling on members of Congress to support H.R. 3, a bill that would lower drug prices by allowing Medicare negotiation. The new six-figure push will start on July 2 in 38 House districts, and will include TV ads, digital ads, and grassroots advocacy, in which patients will write and call their members of Congress directly.
“Momentum to pass legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for Americans continues to grow in Washington and across the country,” said David Mitchell, a cancer patient and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now. “It’s time for the House to advance H.R. 3 and deliver the relief that 9 out of 10 Americans support.”
The new phase will continue efforts in 36 House districts and will launch for the first time in Minnesota’s second district and Washington’s eighth district. The campaign thanks members of Congress who support H.R. 3 and encourages other members to join their colleagues in support of the bill.
The expanded push will include new video ads highlighting Steven Hadfield, a patient from Charlotte, North Carolina, who lives with a rare blood cancer and is prescribed a medication priced at $132,000 a year.
“I’ve been fighting it for seven years,” Steven says in the ads playing on digital platforms. “$132,000. That’s the annual price for my cancer medication. I live in fear over my high drug prices. You wonder how everybody else survives.”
Watch an example of the full video ad here.
P4ADNow’s campaign to support H.R. 3 was first launched on May 20 with a seven-figure budget, running in 42 House districts across 22 states and in D.C. It included a video ad highlighting patient advocate Marcus LaCour that ran on TV and digital platforms, as well as direct grassroots advocacy where patients have reached out to members of Congress.
The campaign pushes back against Big Pharma’s attack ads loaded with liesabout H.R. 3.
H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, was reintroduced in the House of Representatives in April. The chamber passed the bill in the 116th Congress. It will lower prices, rein in price gouging, and reduce out-of-pocket costs by restoring balance to the U.S. drug pricing system to ensure both innovation and affordability. |
