Continues. Host each week, we look at the money and n of your federal policy and this week were joined by David Mitchell, founder of d patients for Affordable Drugs. Prescription drug prices. What is chell, first, your group . Guest what is your group . Guest patients for Affordable Drugs, we are the only National Patient organization focused exclusively on lower drug prices. Take monfreany organization, profit from development or distribution of Prescription Drugs. Speak for patients, 50, last, always. Ost you are a patient yourself . Guest yeah. About seven years ago, i was incurable ith an multiple er policies to called myelomatis incurable, but it is expensive with very drugs. Retail price 450,000, so this of having a cancer to deal ough, having with expensive drugs brought me challengese with the people confront and nobody was really speaking up on behalf of the patients on drug pricing. Wife, who is a little crazy, too, and also a cancer urvivor, she and i decided we would try to start a group to do this. Host how many patients are a your group and how long have you been around . Guest we launched almost a year last year. Ry 22nd of time e collected in that 12,000 patient stories and 30,000 addresss from people around the country. Host it is an advocacy what is the tax filing, what are you legally allowed to do . 501c3. We are 501c4, political patients rm, called for Affordable Drugs now. What were doing really is stories and t amplifying those to policymakers, elected officials mobilizing patients in our community to speak up for olicies that will lower drug prices. So last week, one of our the nts testified before oregon legislature. On march 1, ill be in colorado o join patients testifying before the colorado legislature. Two weeks ago we had patient washington, around a bill called the creates act, a certain path by Drug Companies. Brought in from i went to a meeting with paul trapp, office and jackie a retired teacher from his district, who pays more than 18,000 a year out of pocket for her trugs. Patients mobilizing online and beginning to mobilize atients directly to be advocates for themselves. C3 and u mention the advocacy arm. How does your group raise money . Guest we get money from foundations. Order to help leverage that money, my wife and i decided hat we would start the group with our own money, frankly we put in 75,tment to three years. R for i work for free. I retired to do this, went to potential funders and said if i work for free and i put in my own money, would you help us . Yes. Foundations said weve raised three years. I work for free. I retired to do this, went monf online who eople come to patientsforaffordabledrugs. Org, few bucks. Iven us a we dont ask for money from to ents, but if they want help, we can use the help. Host David Mitchell, founder of patients for Affordable Drugs. Weeks money segment. Here is what the president had union in his state of the address about Prescription Drug prices. Pres. Trump one of my greatest to reduce the price of Prescription Drugs. [applause] in many other countries, these drugs cost far what we pay in the united states. Unfair. Very, very that is why ive directed my dministration to make fixing the injustice of high drug priorities f my top for the year. [applause] pres. Trump and prices will substantially. Host the president from his state of the union address. Releases his budget plan, hat do we know how how he will put that into action and bring the prices down . Guest first of all, the prices in s right, this country are way too high. Three time what is people pay in other twped countries. Reason is there are governmentgranted monopolys given to pharmaceutical allowed and they are to charge whatever they want. We think the president was right a year ago when he said drug getting away with murder. The ately, in prot po propos far. Osals weve seen so a report released last week pharma from cludes any action, the big drug action to rshgs any lower drug prices. The document says, well change design, which could be good, were going to change design of benefits under medicaid, which also could be good, but the head waters, the root of the problem prices set by the Drug Companies and there is nothing proposals te house weve seen so far that would address that. Now the budget documents are and well see more detail. We are very interested to see hether theyre going to actually do something that would go after the root cause of the companies. E dug host what is the best way to go at the root cause of the problem . Two ways. One is as the president that the last year, federal government should negotiate directly with the drug lower drug prices. Every other country in the world ones hat, were the only that doesnt. We pay more. The other will be to tackle the patent abuse. The Drug Companies get a period a exclusivity when they bring drug to market, it allows them to make a lot of money, governmentgranted monopoly. T the end, were supposed to allow generics to come to market with free market competition. Drug Companies Gain the system and do things called pay for delay. They dont give samples of their product to generic manufacturers samples to develop a generic equivalent. Is aed patent reform there bill in congress the president could support, the creates act, taxpayers 3. 3 billion and speed cheaper could s to market and he stand up for that right now. It is bipartisan in both houses week. Could do it this host talk more about the creates act. Irst part of what you were talking about the bloomberg reports about what is be prog from h. H. S. And what well see in documents, proposals include something President Trump threatend and companys drug biggest fear, negotiating directly, that is what you think would help most. That is patent reform immediately would do the most to this own drug prices in country. Host go ahead. Join o invite viewers to the conversation, we split phone lines up regionally, if you live eastern or central time one, the phone number is 2027488000. If you live in mountain or 2027488001. , we want to hear your stories and uestions for David Mitchell with patients for Affordable Drugs. Patients for Affordable Drugs out on to check them the internet. Guest i want to add one thing, if i can. Please. Guest there are problems all down the Drug Distribution chain report that a fine was issued last november by the sciences, ademies of chairedt people, it was by norm au norm our disdain, a formergu ceo of Lockheed Martin and two cheap recommendations to lower drug prices in this country were medicare should be able to negotiate directly for drug prices and we need patent reform. Those two things completely missing from the white house proposals. Host barry in island heights, new jersey. Good morning. Caller good morning. I wanted to bring attention to the unanimous approval of the 2012 f. D. A. Safety and innovation act giving f. D. A. The right to charge fees for generic drug manufacturers. These fees are unfair because if you make generic drugs this 1000 year you pay 248,000. If you make one generic drug, your fee is 248,000. 65 generic drug manufacturers have gone out of business because of the Fee Structure. Guest i am not intimately familiar with the generic Fee Structure for f. D. A. User fees. I can say this, the way we express competition to drive down prices under the Legal Framework we have in this country is that we allow generics to come to market after the brand has a time of exclusivity. The first generic generally reduces the price to 80 of the original brand price and by the time we get four or five, the present and come down to 20 or or 15 . We need a healthy generic industry in order to be able to effectuate the policy we have, brands get a big return for innovation and research for that period of time than generics drive down prices. Ill look into the issue you raise and familiarize myself with it. Thank you. Host dean has a question, why cant we model after v. A. System . I used that the ache pharmacy the v. A. Pharmacy low cost and order online and they ship to my house. Guest interestingly, thank you for that, Veterans Administration is the only Government Entity, federal Government Entity that is allowed to bargain over drug prices and they get substantially lower drug prices, that is why we think the experience of v. A. Is something we could build on and allow medicare to use that same negotiating approach on behalf of all of us so that we can get better prices, like those in other countries. Host to tammy in vienna, virginia. Good morning. Caller hi. My understanding is that many new drugs and medical protocols actually have their root in federal funding. Federal agencies might support their research and Development Efforts when theyre new. It stands to reason that these same companies would be required to sort of be more agreeable to negotiating prices down the road, especially since they have benefited from federally funded research. What is your comment on that . Guest i couldnt agree more, tammy, thank you. The fact is roughly 50 to 60 of roughly 50 to 60 of all the major new breakthrough drugs that come to market in this country, come about as a result of investment, taxpayer investment by the National Institutes of health, directly from the n. I. H. Or through academic medical centers. A drug just came to market, a wonderful drug that i probably will get, its called, it is a cartt drug, first approval and i can explain that if you want host please. Guest genetically reprograms your blood to go after the cancer. Cart stands for receptor and reprograms your tcells to find cancer and kill it. The n. I. H. Invested more than 200 million from 1993 to 2017 to bring this drug to market. The head of the n. I. H. Says cartt drugs are grounded on initial basic science conducted by the n. I. H. But when novartis brought the first version to market it put a price on of 475,000, just for the drug. Then the cost of care associated with administering the drug is another halfMillion Dollars and i am not exaggerating. It is a Million Dollar treatment. We cant keep pricing drugs this way, that we all pay to develop. We have to have a discussion about how we price drugs to maximize accessibility and affordability while maintaining a rich rnd pipeline and reasonable profit for the company. Host circle back to the creates act, this from axios reporting the pharmaceutical industry was able to keep the create tax out of the budget agreement that came out last week. The gist of the create tax make it easier for companies to obtain samples of brandname products they are trying to copy, an integral step of copying them. Senior republican aide says the problem with the create tax, it would be giving away the store to trial lawyers and allow generics to sue for access to product samples. I want to get to respond to that. Guest that senior staffer is confused. Trial lawyers cant sue under the creates act to get the samples. Only bona fide Generic Companies who have fda to request with the manufacture the drug and whose safety protocols have been cleared can request the drug, so theyre the only ones who could sue. In other words, a company that cant get the drugs could sue, not trial lawyers. And affirmative defense on behalf of the Brand Company that refuses to provide samples is to simply provide the samples and then the whole thing goes away. So that is specious and wrong and this is just further scare tactics on the part of pharmaceutical industry, which is not being truthful about this bill and the woman i described to you from congressman ryans district who came from wisconsin to meet with his staff, jackie trapp, shes on a rems drug. The reason the drug is expensive, 18,000 out of pocket for jackie, a retired school teacher, is because of this abuse by the company who makes that drug. It refused to provide samples to companies that want to make a cheaper generic. It entered an agreement with a Generic Company that doesnt allow generic to come to market until 2022, five years more of exclusivity. Its called pay for delay. Host who should viewers watch in congress when it comes to the creates act and where it goes from here . Guest thats a darn good question. The lead sponsor is senator leahy, but it has support, strong bipartisan support iowa, lee ofley of utah, collins of may, ted cruz, rand paul, senator kennedy of louisiana, signed on last week, those are all republicans. And then it has really strong support from the democratic side. I would say, watch the House Judiciary Committee and watch the budget the negotiations that are coming up on the funding bill that is due to be acted on in march because we intend to make another big push to get that included into the funding bill. We still have momentum, we were adding cosponsors last week. Host to you think if it gets to the president s desk, he will sign it . Guest i cant speak for the president , but it is consistent with what he says he wants. So i would say, yes. Host linda in jacksonville, florida, good morning. Caller good morning. My comment is on the price of Prescription Drugs. My husband and i live on Social Security and his retirement. And it is just about almost poverty level. The medication that i take are majority of them are the tier3 drugs that have no generics and i just, you know, this one medication is without my insurance, almost more than half of what i receive in Social Security. My problem is that were going to be in the donut hole in about four or five months and we are going to be having to choose between medicine and food and builds, and we dont qualify for food stamps or medicare extra help and we dont qualify for anything else. Host thanks for sharing your story. David mitchell. Guest this is the kind of story that is the reason were doing this. It makes me so mad. Shes just expressing what millions of people are experiencing around the country. The out of pocket for the 12 most expensive drugs for people who have Medicare Partd coverage like she has, runs from 4400 to about 12,000 a year. Median. Not highest, but the median cost for those 12 drugs. This is for people who are making a Median Income of about 26,000 a year. Its just wrong. And medicare should be negotiating over the price of these drugs. There are proposals to cap out of pocket under Medicare Part d. We have to see what those look like because there is a way you can cap the prices and it is like a balloon, squish it here and it comes out there. And if it is going to raise prices for people sorry, if it is going to raise premiums for people dramatically, it may not be the best solution, put that would be a help. That could be in the budget today, well take a look and see. But again, the root cause of the problem is that were not negotiating over the price of these drugs with the Drug Companies. Host David Mitchell is with patients for Affordable Drugs, youve heard storys from viewers today on this topic. Patience for Affordable Drugs have a map of the various patients that you work with across the country and their stories. I imagine you can click on the dots individually to hear and see the stories from the patients that work with them. Patientsforaffordabledrugs. Org, if you want to check it out online. David mitchell with us until 9 40 this morning. Taylor in iowa, good morning. Caller yeah, want to talk about Affordable Drugs. You know, i just know i see a lot of people around here, especially this area, where they cant quite afford what they need and one thing that ive notice the cannibis industry will take down the pharmaceutical industry, i hope that happens, we dont want people to get their pockets full. Im seeing this video the other day on facebook. That is all. Thank you. Host mr. Mitchell. Guest im not sure what that comment was and im not familiar with the cannibis industry. I have to say i wish you well. Host lynette, in clear lake, california, good morning. Caller good morning. I think the biggest problem that we have with our Prescription Drugs is that the senators and our congressmen are selling their votes to big pharma. And they have to vote for that. They dont represent us, they take the money and go big pharmas way. Its so irritating. I live on 12,000 a year, i got built from my superscript medicare drug plan. They want 57 from me. That is taking food out of my mouth. Host mr. Mitchell. Guest that comment, thank you for that, is really emblem attic really emblematic of what we hear from many. Patients tell us all the time, i have to choose between buying food, i choose between paying rent and buying drugs i need. Patients who cut pills in half or skip doses. People who are type 1 diabetes, have to have insulin to manage their disease, who try not to use it until their blood sugar spikes, which is really dangerous for a diabetic. It can put them into insulin shock, because they cant afford the drugs they need. We had a patient who told us two weeks ago that he has cancer and he has multiple sclerosis. He cant afford both drugs, he lets multiple sclerosis progress because he has to treat his cancer or die. This is happening all over america right now and absolutely right, the pharmaceutical industry is one of, if not the most powerful industry in this country. They spent billions of dollars over the past 40 years building up Regulatory Framework, a government Regulatory Framework that enables them to charge monopoly prices and we all pay for it. How do you feel about alex az host how do you feel about alexazar . Guest i think mr. Azar is experienced, worked at department of health and human services, understands the drug industry quite well as result of time he spent as head of lilly, a drug company, he was the head of the u. S. Operation of lilly, but it remains to be seen whether mr. Azar will use his knowledge and experience to actually lower drug prices in ways that are meaningful and if hes willing to do what the National Academy of science suggest, which is we need a balanced approach from the production of the drugs to the pharmacy counter, we have reforms we need to make, you cant leave the Drug Companies out of it, it appears to me mr. Azar is in fact leaving the Drug Companies out. Host to jim in leesburg, virginia, good morning. Caller yeah, morning. Way back when i was in the military, like the other guy said, the military is there to blow things up and kill people. My son is combat marine said military was there for hearts and minds, shoot them in the head and heart, that is what the military is for, not for delivering pizza. After 9 11, we needed to do something, we should have went in with bigger footprint and showed the bad guys in those countries where this stuff was able to be put together, we dont want to be target of any attack like 9 11. Host bring us to drug prices. Bring us to Prescription Drug prices. Caller Prescription Drug program, when social Program Spending is much bigger than what the military spending is, there is a problem with both parties, id say definitely the democratic socialists are in there and the americans dont wise up, they realize they can vote themselves a raise these days and leading the world is leading more toward socialism. Host we got your point. We will stick to topic of Prescription Drug prices. David mitchell, president and founder of patients for Affordable Drugs, with us for 10 minutes or so. Want to get to as many calls as we can. Tony, baltimore, good morning. Caller good morning. Im in my 70s and about 30 years ago, im listening to a talk show, they are interviewing the c. E. O. Of a Pharmaceutical Company and hes explaining why pharmaceuticals have gotten so expensive. Hes going through the reasons. Its a callin show. Gentleman calls in and says i , lived on a farm all my life and 30 years ago we raise a lot of sheep, and there was a certain pill that we gave that sheep and im not sure what to treat, but he said that pill cost . 06, but recently they say it could help in the treatment of some type of cancer. Now that pill is 6. And he said to the c. E. O. , why . You cant say research, they had to recoup the investment, the pill is 30 years ago. The guy blurted out because it will save your life. And he caught himself and realized what he did and that is basically why pharmaceuticals are so high. Guest thank you, tony. I have an incurable disease. It incurable because my cancer mutates. It will find its way around the drugs. If i want to live as long as i hope, watch my youngest kid graduate from college, maybe have a grandchild one day, would be cool, i need them to develop new drugs. We need to invest in new drugs and innovation, the fact of the matter is there is no direct correlation between drugs and between the price of drugs and investment in research for new drugs. And if you ask me, if my kids lying on the gurney and you ask what are you willing to pay your childs life, i would say, whatever it takes, i will sell my house, empty my bank account, that is the wrong question. In this country we have to ask the right question. What is the price for drugs, especially new drugs that maximize accessibility and affordability while maintaining robust r d pipeline for new drugs we want and need and reasonable return for Drug Companies that commercialize those drugs . Right now, the Drug Companies care about one thing and that is maximizing profits. Accessibility and affordability is not what they are focused on. We need to reweight the discussion back to making sure people get drugs they need. Host what is reasonable profit to you . Guest a reasonable profit depends on the risk that was taken, the drug i described earlier in the program and there were probably people who didnt hear, brandnew drug brought to market with price tag of their a price tag of that taxpayers 475,000 actually paid to invent. We took a look at that drug and actually modeled it with experts at harvard and a former pharmacy ceo and published paper last week in Health Affairs and figured out if the drug Company Novartis got historic 27 profit and 19 for continuing r d, we got to have that, they could charge 160,000. Instead they are charging 475,000 and will make a profit of 65 on a drug that we helped invent. We think that we should be looking more at what is a fair return and we think 27 , for example, in the case of novartis, historic return on current portfolio of profit is more than fair. Host homer, in louisiana, good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. Im 75 years old, im a veteran, i go to the v. A. Would you believe that i have blue cross and blue shield on top of that, i still have to pay 12, 14 for my medicine at the drug store. It is cheaper to go to the drug store than the v. A. And it dont seem fair and my wife, she was a school teacher, retired school teacher, she has to pay 350 per quarter just to be on my insurance. It just insane. We worked all our lives and used to be a little better. And im pretty well, if it wasnt for my son, im catching hell. Guest thank you, thank you for your call. I understand. I would urge you to come to patients for Affordable Drugs. Org leave your story, your , email address and zip code and join our community. We are already mobilizing tens of thousands of patients across the country, you can be a part of that to help address the challenges you and your wife are having right now. I am sorry for those. Host to linda in medina, ohio, good morning. Caller good morning, mr. Mitchell, good luck with your myeloma. Guest thank you. Caller easy question, last year i was diagnosed with psoriasis, im on a drug called cosentyx, a selfinjecting pen. Im paying virtually nothing for it right now because my husbands health care is paying for it. They also pick up, the drug company picks up part of the premium that i would normally pay. The program is only good for from what i understand, two years and what my question for you is what is going to happen when the two years is up . Right now i take two of those pens a month, each pen is 7500. So two is 15,000, which is half of my annual income. Is there any what do they do . How does that work . Guest well, further reflection of the fact that Drug Companies control the prices. They set the prices really high, give you discount for copayment, everybody else, you, me, still paying for the premiums either through our employer or through our taxes. And by doing this, they keep you in their control and keep the price high. That is why we are focused on taking steps to lower the retail price so that you do not have to rely on those programs from the Drug Companies which really are a way for the Drug Companies to sell more products. There was a really by city there was a report by citi Financial Analytics organization that found that for every Million Dollars a drug Company Invests in a program like the one they are using for you, they make 21 million back. The reason is they give you a little bit of help, but they keep the price big and we all pay the balance of the price through our premiums, either as employees, employers or taxpayers. Host jeffrey on twitter wants me to ask you about programs Drug Companies have helping people that cant afford medications, how easy is it to get that kind of help . Guest it depends on a number of factors. Drug companies spend billions on those programs, but they are not always there, they are not all year long, but worse as i say, they are not really programs to help you, they are programs to market, they to it to sell more drugs at a higher price. Host how so . Guest because, lets say for example, that you have a drug and you raise the price to 1000 from 200. And the copay is going to be 100. They cover the copay for 100, but still got that increase from 200 to 1000 less 100, im doing a lot of math, they made i think 700 on that deal and put that in their pocket. Not only that, but the donation, donation they made to a foundation to give you that copay coupon is tax deductible, so they get that back, too. These are marketing programs. That is why the drug prices that is why the way to fix drug prices starts with lowering retail price of the drug. Now we have other issues on the part of pharmacy benefit managers who control 80 of the market. They are people who run the drug programs, there are other issues, if we dont get to drug pricing, we dont get at the problem. Host another jeffrey in frederick, maryland, good morning. Caller good morning. How you doing . Start off by thanking David Mitchell and cspan for doing this program. It is very needed. I had two questions, my two questions were, is there going to be a difference between life saving programs like life saving drugs like harvoni, during this epidemic were having, the hiv epidemic, is there a difference between maintenance drugs and lifesaving drugs or can there be made a difference . My other question was with the opiate epidemic, they are not talking with car fentanyl and synthetic drugs being brought into this country. Im a chronic pain patient with ms, suffering more today getting my medication and being able to live my life because there is an epidemic of this proportion, which i understand and i it has affected my family and my town as well but in the , process, you know, all these people that have cancer and ms, and chronic pain, theyre committing suicide because they cant get proper help. Host mr. Mitchell. Guest im just going to talk about hepatitis c drugs. Right now, there are millions of people in this country who cannot get access to those drugs because they are too expensive. They cure hepatitis c. We could wipe it out. The drug company who own those drugs, principally gilead, has priced it out of reach for many programs especially public , programs. We have folks that could be cured, who arent being cured because the price is too high. Host what about the access to pain medication and the impact that the efforts to cut down on opioids has had on patients who use it correctly and need it . Guest i am not an expert on opioid addiction. And i believe that we need steps, better steps to track the distribution of drugs, how are they getting into peoples hands, prescribing patterns, dispensing patterns by pharmacies and people who have addiction need appropriate treatment. That could be treatment at treatment centers, drugs that help wean people off of addictive drugs, we need both those things. We need to make sure were cracking down on the supply and supporting people who are trying to fight their addiction. Host the group is patients for Affordable Drugs, patient theforaffordabledrugs. Org, David Mitchell is president and founder. Appreciate the time. We are live in little rock arkansas for the next stop on the 50 capitals tour. Asa kutch and hutchinson will be our guest starring at 9 00 eastern. Heres a look at our live coverage tuesday on cspan. Mick mulvaney outlines the president s 2019 budget request before the Senate Budget committee. House gavels and at noon for general speeches legislative business at 2 00. On cspan to the senate meets at 10 00 a. M. To continue work on immigration legislation. On cspan3, the Senate Intelligence committee looks a Global Security threats with cia director mike pompeo, nsa director Michael Rogers and director of national ,ntelligence, dan coats followed later by a Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing on the defense departments role in protecting u. S. Elections from foreign influence. Cspan pass history series landmark cases returns this month with a look at 12 new Supreme Court cases area to historians and experts join us to discuss the constitutional issues and personal stories behind significant Supreme Court decisions. Beginning monday, february 26th, live at 9 p. M. Eastern, and to help you follow all 12 cases we have a companion guide written by Supreme Court journalist tony morrow. Landmark cases, volume 2. The book cost 8. 95 plus shipping and handling. To get your copy go to cspan. Org landmarkcases. Former Homeland Security secretary jeh johnson took part in an event on the security and vulnerabilities of u. S. Election as