With passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, there has been an historic breakthrough to begin to lower prescription drug prices for Americans! The provisions of the new law help ensure patients will get the innovative new drugs they need at affordable prices. For the first time, Medicare will be authorized to negotiate prices directly for some of the costliest prescription medicines; institute a cap on out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries; and limit annual price increases in Medicare to stop price gouging by drug corporations. CBO estimates savings of almost $300 billion to the federal government alone. 

Here’s a recap of what MomsRising did to help contribute to this win:

For several years, we have been working in coalition with partner organizations to advocate for families to have access to safe, affordable prescription medicines. Since we launched our targeted campaign in 2019, MomsRising members like you have taken hundreds of thousands of actions, submitted hundreds of personal stories, and made thousands of calls to Congress! 

Just ahead of the vote, one of our members, Angelina Scott, shared her story with CNN about the high cost of her medications and the terrible choices she has had to make as a result. In May, we delivered hundreds of stories to every single member of Congress with our prescription drugs storybook that highlights our members' stories from all across the nation. We also did numerous other outreach efforts, including our Campaign Director, Tasmiha Khan, authoring a piece in The American Prospect where we highlighted some of our member stories.

Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices has been a long fight in the making and an uphill battle with pharmaceutical corporations spending at least $142 million on lobbying efforts. We couldn’t have made this happen without all of us speaking out, sharing stories, and pushing Congress to choose the health of our families over the profits of big Pharma. Thank you for making this finally happen!