Every day I see and hear of members of our community struggling to afford their prescription medications. They tell of the gut-wrenching decisions they must make – pay egregious amounts for their prescriptions or pay for essentials like groceries or rent. Not everyone is as fortunate as I am to have an excellent health plan. Those without such plans pay dearly one day and even more the next for prescription drugs.

These problems are only compounded when we realize that there is no end in sight. Our community members will only see their problem worsen, exponentially, before it even begins to get better unless our legislators in Washington act.

I worked with and know both U.S. Sens. Michael Bennett and John Hickenlooper. They know how to get things done when they put their minds to it. It is time for them to step up and stop Big Pharma from putting Coloradans in these predicaments, both immediately and in the future.

The cost of prescription drugs in America is irrefutably out-of-control. A pre-pandemic survey found that over 58 million Americans were struggling to afford their prescription drugs. Now, after months of unprecedented circumstances and even more Big Pharma price hikes throughout the pandemic, the hole patients are in has gotten even larger. In the first month of 2021 alone Big Pharma hiked the price of over 800 prescription drugs, and just one week into July we have already seen another batch of price hikes begin.

The unjustified price hikes disproportionately affect majority-minority communities in which citizens are more likely to have conditions or diseases that make them reliant on prescription drugs. The toll that the price of prescription drugs can take on a community is amplified here in communities of color across metro Denver.

Oftentimes these companies will hike the prices with the excuse that they are being driven up by the costs associated with medical innovations or research and Development (R&D). However, a 2021 report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that R&D costs do not influence a drugs list price at all — further proving that Big Pharma has taken money out of patients’ pockets under the guise of medical advances without providing added benefit to the patient.

Big Pharma has ways to keep these prices rising year after year. By stockpiling patents, manufacturers of brand name prescription drugs can extend their monopolies and keep cheaper generic and biosimilar drugs out of the market — thus ensuring that Coloradans struggling to afford their prescriptions must continue to pay these high prices by limiting competition.

For example, the world’s top-selling drug, AbbVie’s Humira, has applied for a ludicrous 257 patents. Among this stockpile, 90 percent of the patents were applied for after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initially approved the drug, or after the drug was already on the market. This egregious number of patents has kept all generic, cheaper competition to Humira out of the U.S. market for 39 years.

It is time for our legislators in Washington to stand up and put an end to the gamesmanship and price gouging.

Ninety six percent of Americans agree lowering drug prices is an urgent matter, and 86% realize that Big Pharma is to blame for rising prescription drug prices. In Washington, we have seen members of both parties come together and put forth possible solutions to lower drug prices. President Biden called upon Congress to lower prescription drug prices and reiterated the urgency of the matter by including the calls in his Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2022.

Our senators and our U.S. representatives must join in this fight. The livelihoods of communities like ours are truly on the line.

Sens. Bennet and Hickenlooper must work across the aisle to end the abuse of the patent system to increase competition in the pharmaceutical marketplace and increase transparency so Big Pharma can no longer skate by after raising their prices without justification or public scrutiny. One side blaming the other just will not cut it. Coloradans in general, and the African-American community specifically, need and want action, not excuses, in 2021. We voted in overwhelming numbers for John Hickenlooper, Michael Bennet and Joseph Biden and it is time for them to deliver.

We need urgent solutions to cap seniors’ out-of-pocket costs, stop price hikes above the rate of inflation and disincentivize Big Pharma’s price-gouging behavior by giving the industry substantial liability when Medicare Part D beneficiaries reach the program’s catastrophic phase of coverage.

These bad actors have been able to financially suppress our communities for long enough. It’s time for Washington to hold Big Pharma’s feet to the fire and ensure that they no longer have the power to force patients into making impossible decisions. Sens. Bennet and Hickenlooper, show the leadership we elected you to provide!

Sandra Newell is a longtime Denver community leader and western regional director for the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. She is a retired manager of the City of Denver’s Wastewater Division.