FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, November 16, 2016
CONTACT: Mark Almberg, mark@pnhp.org, 312-782-6006
Media Advisory
Physicians, medical students and labor leaders to denounce drug industry for price gouging and profiteering, and to call for an ‘improved Medicare for All’ to rein in drug costs
WHAT: A picket line and rally of about 100 physicians and their supporters outside the Washington headquarters of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) to protest the skyrocketing prices of prescription drugs and the blatant profiteering of the drug industry.
WHY: Protest organizers say the median price of the 100 best-selling brand-name drugs jumped from $1,260 in 2010 to $9,400 in 2014, and that pharma executives made $11 billion between 2011 and 2015. They say a single-payer system, or “improved Medicare for all,” would be able to negotiate better prices for prescription drugs and medical supplies, bringing prices into line with what patients pay in other countries.
WHO: (speakers)
* Dr. Robert Zarr, a Washington, D.C.-based pediatrician who serves as president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP)
* Mark Dimondstein, president, American Postal Workers Union
* Kamini Doobay, leader in the New York Coalition to End Racism in the Health System
* Emily Kirchner, a third-year med student at Temple and leader of Students for a National Health Program
* Michael Lighty, public policy director, National Nurses United
* Dr. Adam Gaffney, critical care specialist and PNHP leader, Cambridge, Mass.
WHEN: 4:30 p.m. – 5 p.m. Eastern time, Friday, Nov. 18
WHERE: PhRMA headquarters, 950 F Street N.W., Washington
VISUALS: Many physicians in white lab coats, many signs denouncing pharma greed, and an oversize “invoice” from the American people to PhRMA demanding that the drug industry refund the $150 billion in annual excess costs it has imposed on American people in comparison to what patients pay in other developed countries with single-payer systems.
Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org) is a nonprofit research and education organization of more than 20,000 doctors who support a single-payer national health program.