Democrats: Fight the Drug Companies to Win Back the Senate

By Liz Jaff President of Be a Hero

Control of the Senate is historically decided each election year by races in a handful of battleground states. Pundits and high-paid consultants will tell you the contests are a tug of war over the middle and the winner in November will be the candidate who can convince people they’ll work “across the aisle” and steer clear of “controversy” in Washington. 

But the coronavirus pandemic has upended every aspect of American life, and it hasn’t stopped at the conventional wisdom of the battle for the Senate. 

A recent survey conducted by Be a Hero and Data for Progress in key battleground states shows that Democratic Senate candidates in Arizona, Iowa, Maine and North Carolina can win by taking on the pharmaceutical industry and fighting for truly affordable prescription drugs. 

The Results 

The survey asked voters if they would be more or less likely to support a Senate candidate who supported Medicare covering  “prescription drug costs for all Americans so that they are free at the pharmacy counter.” Fifty-eight percent of voters in battleground states said they'd be more likely to back a Senate candidate who supported that policy with similar results in each of the battleground states. It clearly shows Americans are frustrated when they visit the pharmacy counter, and they’re ready for a new avenue to bypass Big Pharma's price gouging. Imagine showing up to the drug store and instead of finding out you have a copay of hundreds of dollars, every single month, the meds you need to stay alive are just free to you. Voters in so-called “purple states” are more open to the idea than the pundits would have you think. 

We also asked voters in Arizona, Iowa, Maine and North Carolina about ending patents on high cost drugs, which would enable generic manufacturers to produce the medicines, which allows other companies to make the drug and, as a result, lowers prices. Seventy-two percent of voters said they’d be more likely to back a candidate who supported the idea, which includes support from 76 percent of voters in Iowa and Maine. When we asked voters if they’d be more likely to back a candidate who supported allowing the government itself to manufacture those generic drugs, 66 percent of all voters agreed, including 71 percent of voters in Maine. 

Voters in battleground states also continue to widely support allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, something it is barred from doing under current law.

Next, we asked voters again about these four proposals to drive down the cost of pharmaceuticals, this time to gauge whether or not they’d support or oppose it. For all four, we found extremely high levels of enthusiasm. Across all four states, voters support allowing Medicare to cover the cost of prescriptions at the pharmacy counter by a 29 percentage-point margin, having the government manufacture generic alternatives to certain drugs by a 46-point margin, allowing Medicare to negotiate the cost of drugs by a 46-point margin, and ending the patents of high cost drugs by a 51-point margin. 

One of the most popular ideas we polled was making coronavirus treatments and vaccines free. A massive 72 percent of voters in battleground states said they were more likely to back a candidate who supported the idea. 

Finally, 64 percent of voters want a candidate who backs joining the international community in developing and sharing treatments and vaccines, directly taking on Trump and his move to pull us out of the World Health Organization, and his refusal to join the international vaccine collaboration effort. 

Conclusion 

The results of our survey aren’t surprising considering the behavior of drug companies during a pandemic that has killed more than 160,000 Americans and infected over 5 million.  

Last month, Daniel O’Day, the CEO of Gilead Sciences, publicly defended the price his company set for the drug remdesivir, which is the first medicine proven to treat COVID-19. “At this price it’s significantly below the value it brings to patients and to society,” he told STAT News. “I believe that this is the right decision for patients and it’s the right decision for Gilead and it’s the right decision for investors.” The price? $3,120 per single treatment. What O’Day doesn’t say is that the federal government invested tens of millions of dollars to develop the drug, and then in June got a sweetheart deal from the Trump Administration worth half a billion dollars.  

But the greed of Big Pharma is nothing new. My dear friend Ady Barkan, who co-founded Be a Hero with me, is dying. Four years ago he was diagnosed with ALS, and he needs medicine to stay alive. But he and his family are forced to battle drug companies and insurance companies every single day just to get the treatment he needs. In the richest nation in the world, Ady shouldn’t have to fight both a terrible disease and the corporations who manufacture the drugs that can keep him alive. 

The truth is the pharmaceutical industry cares too much about profits and what’s right for investors and too little about patients – a fact that has killed countless Americans who need medicine but can’t afford it. Following years of stories about the skyrocketing cost of life-saving drugs and a stagnant drug discovery pipeline, the coronavirus pandemic is putting the drug industry’s greed under a national spotlight, and voters are disgusted. 

In the fight against high drug prices, the moral position is also good politics. Senate candidates who we know are looking for every advantage possible in their races shouldn’t pass up this opportunity. Tell voters you’re ready to get into a fist fight with greedy drug companies, and we’ll see you at your swearing-in ceremony in January.