To the editor,

It’s comforting to know that, when necessary, lawmakers will step in to prevent disastrous policies from becoming reality.

Most recently, Congress thankfully avoided including policies targeting pharmacy benefits – on which millions of Americans rely – in the March spending package, demonstrating that certain lawmakers are still willing to put Wisconsin patients first.

This was undoubtedly the right move by Congress, especially if you take into consideration that pharmacy benefit companies help patients and payers save more than $1,000 per person per year. We can only hope that lawmakers will oppose future attempts to pass these kinds of misguided policies that undermine the work of pharmacy benefit companies to secure savings at the pharmacy counter.

Government mandates, such as those included in the latest spending bill discussions, would have weakened pharmacy benefit companies’ negotiating power against Big Pharma by helping drug companies boost their own profits. For example, just one policy – known as “delinking” – would

help the biggest pharmaceutical companies increase their profits by $22 billion annually.

The price tag for us? We would see health care premiums through employer-sponsored insurance or the commercial health insurance market surge by $26.6 billion each year.

I really hope the Wisconsin delegation in Washington will continue to prevent these policies from becoming a reality and fight against harmful measures that increase the prices of the prescription medications we depend on.

Crystal Mooney

Spring Valley