HELP America’s Vulnerable Communities With Printed PMI
As a member of the Pennsylvania State Legislature’s Women’s Health Caucus, I know that when you educate women, health outcomes improve for the whole community. That’s because women often manage healthcare not only for themselves but also for their households. Keeping the appointments, medication, and information straight is tough enough. That’s why I was dismayed to see a newly proposed FDA rule that will likely make that task harder for women and families. Fortunately, the accomplished and powerful bipartisan group of women on the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) is in a position to do something about it.
Despite all the rhetoric you hear about American government dysfunction, the Senate is working hard to improve the lives of the American people. In particular, the women on the Senate HELP Committee regularly work across the aisle on common-sense legislation to protect the health of Americans. Sadly, their work often goes unreported by the media. Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) are unsung American healthcare heroes, uniting to tackle the most pressing problems facing our families. Specifically, these senators have united in a shared vision to guarantee healthcare access for America’s most vulnerable patient groups.
Senators Murray and Murkowski introduced the Survivors’ Access to Supportive Care Act (SASCA), which would improve healthcare for survivors of sexual assault, an issue that disproportionately affects women.
As secretary of Pennsylvania’s House Agriculture & Rural Affairs Committee, I greatly appreciate the ways that they’ve fought to protect rural Americans, an especially vulnerable community when it comes to healthcare. For instance, Sen. Murkowski introduced and Sen. Smith cosponsored the Rural America Health Corps Act to encourage more healthcare professionals to serve in rural communities.
The women of the Senate HELP Committee have worked to expand access to life-saving prescriptions for millions of Americans who rely on them. Sens. Baldwin, Smith, and Murkowski introduced the FAIR Drug Pricing Act, which addresses high prescription drug prices by requiring pharmaceutical companies to notify the public when planning to raise prices.
Yet for Americans on prescription medication, there is another area that needs addressing: patient medication information. PMI is the packet of information dispensed with prescriptions at the pharmacy that describes a drug’s intended use, possible side effects, and instructions.
Recently, the FDA proposed a rule that, if enacted, would push all PMI online. Americans would have to scan a QR code at the pharmacy or at home to access life-saving information about their medications. Yet the Biden administration has repeatedly acknowledged, including through a significant investment in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, that rural America lacks critical broadband infrastructure – leaving far too many people without reliable access to the Internet and, if the FDA has its way, their PMI. Having printed PMI on hand is critical to ensuring that families across America are taking prescription medication safely. And with more than 120,000 Americans dying from medication non-adherence every year, having ready access to PMI could truly be a matter of life or death.
We need to rely once again on the Senate HELP Committee. I am asking that they introduce in the Senate the Patients’ Right to Know Their Medication Act, which has already been introduced in the House of Representatives, and that they support important changes to the FDA’s proposed rule, guaranteeing that Americans receive standardized, comprehensible, and printed PMI at the pharmacy. I call on the women of the Senate HELP Committee to do what they do best – work together to make our country healthier and safer.
