Submitted to the AFRO by Elijah Cummings
Recently, a wonderful neighbor I met at Johns Hopkins Hospital gave me a real-life message that our nation and its government should hear.
“Congressman,” she told me, “the doctors here have saved my life for now, and I thank God for that – but I can’t afford the cure.”
Tears in her eyes, this lady was talking to me about the cost of her healthcare – and, specifically, about the skyrocketing costs for the miracle medicines that could preserve her life.
Of all the inhumanities confronting us during these difficult times, there is something especially cruel about a healthcare system that promises a sick woman an end to her suffering, and, then, dangles that promise just beyond her reach.
The Commonwealth Fund reported in 2014 that nearly 20 percent of Americans were unable to fill the prescriptions that their doctors had ordered that year. They simply could not afford the cost.
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