In 2023, we lost 107,543 individuals to drug overdoses.

In 2023, the list of 30 largest companies by revenue was 20% occupied by health insurance and prescription drug manufacturers. This included United Health Group, Cigna, and Humana which control 79% of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) that produce prescription drugs.

We have increased the percentage of our GDP spent on healthcare from 5% in 1960 to present-day over 22%.

Pfizer is the 8th most profitable company, ranking higher than Meta (Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp) and other tech companies. A few years ago, our government made an example out of Martin Shkreli aka “Pharma Bro” while ignoring the other major companies that have price-gouged essential prescription drugs.

In 2023, pharmaceutical companies spent $15.4 billion on advertising and are projected to increase it to $20 billion in 2024. Pharmaceutical companies are some of the largest advertisers for news networks and lobbyists for politicians.

We need to reign in the pharmaceutical industry.

I want to do the following:

• Ban pharmaceutical, and health insurance, companies from advertising and lobbying our politicians

• Increase the number of retail and compounding pharmacies to distribute the production of essential prescription drugs and support our prescription drug shortage problems

• Reduce the length of prescription drug patents to allow for more generic prescription drugs to be produced.

• Support the FTC lawsuit to break up the 3 big PBMs