Back in 2017-2018, a poll revealed 1 out of 5 Granite Staters were rationing their medications due to cost. It had become a question of heating their homes, buying food or buying their medications. I spoke to many, many people who had suffered ill effects from this. There is the elderly woman who could only afford her blood pressure meds every second or third day who ultimately suffered a devastating stroke when her blood pressure went out of control. There was the young man who traveled to Canada to buy his insulin at a fraction of the cost. There was the cancer patient who had to forgo treatment for a couple of months due to the inability to pay and had a reoccurrence, and many more.
In 2020 an omnibus bill, HB 1280, was passed bringing measures forward to help bring down some of the prohibitive costs of prescription medications. It put a cap of $30/month on insulin refills making a huge difference for our insulin-dependent diabetics. It also formed a Drug Affordability Board to explore the issue and take steps toward importation to result in lower costs. Now I hear there is a bill in place to dissolve this board. I cannot fathom why this would ever happen. The only thing that makes sense is those profiting from the existing price levels would be lobbying to remove any obstacle to those profits. Please shut down this legislation, Amended HB1566, that interferes with this incredibly important work.
Bev Cotton
Weare