Dan and I honestly feel selfish asking our legislators to look at the high costs of Multiple Sclerosis prescription medications.
With all of the ugliness and uncertainty that is going on in our country right now – concerns about school and grocery store shootings, high gas prices, Ukraine, inflation, baby formula shortage – it is hard to imagine that our government has room to focus on some of their constituents’ other concerns.
As selfish as we may feel, this is an action item we’ve discussed with our U.S. Senators and Congress members for more than the past five years. No real movement has happened on this front, and the ever-increasing high costs are alarming.
This year, the median annual cost of MS disease-modifying therapies is almost $94,000. This is an increase of nearly $25,000 from 2015. Talk about inflation!
Our MS disease-modifying therapies are incredibly important in our battle with this progressive chronic illness. These are the medications that help to slow the frequency and severity of MS exacerbation and progression. Still, with the unreasonable increases in these DMTs have forced many people living with MS to cut back on their prescribed doses or stop taking them all together.
Living with any kind of chronic illness isn’t cheap, but the medical costs associated with living with MS are $65,612 more each year than medical costs for individuals who do not live with Multiple Sclerosis. The cost of MS DMTs is the biggest expense in living with the disease.
Dan and I are fortunate and thankful to have insurance that help to cover these costs. However, in addition to Dan’s employment health insurance, he has to count on additional assistance through his drug’s pharmaceutical assistance program.
Again, we were grateful, but what would happen if we did not have insurance and a patient assistance program. That is so scary!
This is why we are speaking up again to remind our members of Congress – Senator Gary Peters, Senator Debbie Stabenow and Congressman John Moolenaar – to take up this conversation and institute changes to help make MS medications more affordable for the nearly 1 million Americans living with MS.
We encourage you to look into ways you also can connect with your legislators to take action.