AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins issued the following statement reacting to the announcement of a deal to lower prescription drug costs

AARP Executive Vice President and Chief Advocacy & Engagement Officer Nancy A. LeaMond issued the following statement reacting to the Build Back Better framework’s failure to lower prescription drug prices.

A new Aging Readiness and Competitiveness report from AARP and Economist Impact shows that while global life expectancy is increasing, there is a growing gap worldwide between how long someone will live and how many healthy years of life they can expect. This gap was only exacerbated as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, which disproportionately affected older adults.

Retail prices for 180 widely used specialty prescription drugs increased by an average of 4.8% in 2020, more than three times the rate of general inflation for that same period (1.3%), according to AARP’s latest Rx Price Watch Report.

AARP has launched a full-scale campaign, including a $4 million ad buy, pushing back on false claims from the pharmaceutical industry that reforms would limit Americans’ access to medicines. AARP has called for fair drug prices for years and is urging Congress to pass legislation that would allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, put a cap on out-of-pocket costs that older adults pay for their prescription drugs and impose penalties on drug companies that raise prices faster than the rate of inflation.