CoPIRG's Rex Wilmouth

Pop Quiz: Who pays the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs?

If you guessed Americans, you’re correct. By now, it’s a well-known fact that Canadians, Europeans and pretty much everyone else in the world pays lower prices for the same drugs while Americans pay through the nose to buy them.

Now, guess which group of Americans pays the highest prices for their prescription drugs? If you guessed the people who can least afford it, you’re awfully close to the mark. Our research shows that uninsured consumers carry the full cost of overpriced prescription drugs.

To top that off, on average, uninsured consumers in Colorado pay 77 percent more than the federal government for 12 common prescription medications. Uninsured consumers in Colorado pay twice as much, 102 percent more, for drugs purchased at their local pharmacy than they would pay if they purchased the same drugs from a Canadian pharmacy. When the 41 million uninsured Americans go it alone at the drug store, they pay the price—sometimes more than double what government agencies pay to buy the same drugs in bulk for large groups of consumers.

The federal government uses its buying power to negotiate lower prices for the drugs it purchases for its beneficiaries, such as veterans, government employees and retirees. Uninsured consumers, with no one to negotiate on their behalf, pay the highest prescription drug prices not only in America, but in the rest of the industrialized world. Prescription drug buying pools are simply good medicine for runaway health care costs.

That’s why CoPIRG is supporting legislation that will allow Colorado to apply to be part of a multi-state prescription drug-buying pool that would allow government agencies, Medicaid and individuals to use their combined buying power to negotiate for lower drug prices.

States that are pooling their collective purchasing power to gain deeper discounts include Alaska, Michigan, Vermont, New Hampshire, Nevada, Minnesota, Hawaii, Montana, Delaware, Missouri, New Mexico, West Virginia and Ohio.

It’s a practical, time-tested, free-market approach to lowering prescription drug costs.