Reader asserts Tiffany's bill endangers affordable medication

To the Editor:

Are you a senior citizen on Medicare? Will you be? Did you know Representative Tom Tiffany is working to make it harder for you to afford medicine?

Since 2022, federal law has allowed Medicare, working on your behalf, to negotiate prescription prices with drug companies. This resulted in lower prices for medicines like insulin. The law also caps the amount people on Medicare spend on prescription drugs at $2,000 per person annually. Additionally, the law requires drug companies to pay rebates to Medicare if their drug prices rise faster than the rate of inflation. All these things help keep medicine affordable for Americans.

Mr. Tiffany wants to do away with these protections. He is co-sponsoring a bill to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains all these provisions. 

Why would he do such a thing?

Maybe Mr. Tiffany doesn’t like other parts of the law? Perhaps he doesn’t like the idea of a minimum tax on companies that earn over $1 billion dollars per year? Maybe he doesn’t like the increased funding for the IRS to go after tax cheats? Perhaps he prefers coal and oil and dislikes the investment in nuclear and solar power?

If any of those things were the case, he could simply have sponsored a bill to do away with those things, while leaving the prescription cost protections alone. Instead, he chose to sponsor a bill that favors drug companies while financially penalizing the very citizens he was elected to represent. 

Do you remember Martin Shkreli? He was the big pharma bigwig who increased the price of one medicine from $13.50 to $750 dollars. Why is Mr. Tiffany looking out for the Shkrelis of the world instead of you? Has he been a politician so long that he doesn’t care about the people he is supposed to represent?

If medicine is too expensive, some people are forced to do without, too often with tragic consequences. Most people are familiar with the stories of people who couldn’t afford insulin, tried doing without, and died horrible deaths. 

Why does Mr. Tiffany want to help the drug companies to again begin charging ridiculous prices for insulin and other drugs?

Could it be that Mr. Tiffany has gotten tangled up in the idea that he must work to undermine anything done by the other party no matter whether it is good or bad? That sort of “party before country” thinking is what has caused our system of government to fail us, and it’s certainly no excuse for a politician to engage in the despicable sort of law making that will put people’s lives at risk.

Write to Mr. Tiffany and tell him that you expect him to represent you, and not the drug companies. Tell him to withdraw his bill and get to work helping ordinary citizens. 

Tom Wiensch

Rhinelander