People had plenty to say at a third town hall about the cost of prescription drugs in Illinois on Tuesday.
"It was insulting. It was insulting to me as an individual. You can't respect my need for those medications, and just think of all this people who don't have that advocacy," said Mary Rothschild, a patient with allergies.
"I went through a series of talking to my physician, talking to my insurance company, trying figure out how can I get the medication that's the better medication that I needed," said Lequita Michelle Mathew, a patient with multiple sclerosis.
Monday's discussion in Chicago at the office of Service Employees International Union centered around proposed state legislation that would cap costs of prescription drugs with a Prescription Drug Affordability Board.
Jessica Schlotfeldt is a pharmacist, and she says despite efforts to negotiate with insurance companies and manufacturers, sometimes, it is too much.
"When they come me and say, 'I don't know what going to happen, and I'm scared if I don't have this medication, I get worse,' and you know what the end result is, and I know what the end result is, it's definitely heavy," Schlotfeldt said.
Each of Monday's panelists had personal stories about the impact of expensive prescriptions.
"This a much larger thing than just me and my dad, and then me and my mom when she was going through her battle with cancer. This is a larger issue that impacting everyone in the country," said State Sen. Celina Villanueva, who represents Illinois' 12th District.
"Whether you are trying to have a child or just trying to live your life, that fact of the matter is that we have a prescription drug affordability crisis," said State Sen. Robert Peters, who represents Illinois' 13th District.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports between January 2022 and January 2023, more than 4,200 drugs saw a price increase on average of more than 15%.
For example, the wholesale price of blood pressure medication Vasopressin (20 unit/mL vial) increased 37-fold from $4.32 to $158.04.
"It is a matter of life and death, and I've seen it on a day-to-day basis," said UChicago Medicine Surgical Resident Dr. Anthony Douglas. "I've had patients come in with complications that are life-threatening and often kill people, because they weren't able to take the blood thinner that costs $600 to $700 dollars a month that they needed."
Earlier this month, the Joe Biden administration negotiated lower prices with pharmaceutical companies for 10 of the costliest Medicare drugs.
The manufacturers have of reported it's expensive to develop new drugs and run the required clinical trials.
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