Is Obamacare Limiting Access to Best Medicine by Controlling Drug Discounts?

***NEWS RELEASE***

For Immediate Release
December 16, 2013

CONTACT:
Deborah Hamilton, Hamilton Strategies, 215.815.7716, 610.584.1096, DHamilton@HamiltonStrategies.com

Is Obamacare Limiting Access to Best Medicine by Controlling Drug Discounts?

CCHF: Administration Trying to Have it Both Ways: Controlling Exchange Plans yet Calling them Private

ST. PAUL, Minn.—Twila Brase, patient advocate and co-founder of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom, shared in recentHealth Freedom Minute—her daily radio feature airing on nearly 350 stations nationwide—that Health and Human Services is sending mixed messages about patients having access to the discounted prescriptions they need.

Federal health officials claim that state exchange coverage is not government health care. But the flexing of their regulatory muscles says otherwise. “The Wall Street Journal” recently reported that it’s unclear if people with Obamacare coverage will have access to drug discount coupons or cards to pay for high-cost medications.

“Government programs cannot accept drug discounts, but drug companies say drug discounts are allowed in the exchanges because federal officials have said that the exchange plans are not government programs. But now the Obama Administration is telling exchange plans not to accept free and discounted drug cards from pharmaceutical companies because they don’t want people to use the new, cutting-edge medicines that cost more and eventually will need to be paid for by the exchange plans after the deductible is reached,” said Twila Brase of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom. “Federal health officials can claim Obamacare is private insurance, but their controlling actions speak louder than their comforting words.”

Brase believes that the government has again left patients in a quandary about their health care choices and that Obamacare is limiting the best course of treatment for some patients by telling health plans to refuse prescription discounts and prevent patients from having access to the most up-to-date medications.
Brase has written a list of the Top Ten Terribles of Obamacare, which include higher costs, privacy intrusions, more red tape, and poor care and coverage, and also lists the top four reasons not to enroll in state exchanges:

1. No Private Insurance: Obamacare is “Medicaid for the middle class.”
2. No Privacy: Patient data enters a federal database that is accessible by the IRS.
3. Limited Choice: Health care coverage utilizes “narrow network” policies.
4. High Cost Premiums: Income redistribution is used to pay for exchange operations and subsidizes high-cost individuals.

Twila Brase shares health care-related news with the American public in her daily, 60-second radio feature, Health Freedom Minute. Health Freedom Minute airs on the entire American Family Radio Network, with more than 150 stations nationwide, in addition to Bott Radio Network with over 80 stations nationwide. During the daily features, listeners can learn more about the agenda behind proposed health care initiatives and policies and what they can do to protect their health care choices, rights and privacy. 

Brase, a public health nurse and health care freedom advocate, informs listeners of crucial health issues, such as the intrusive wellness and prevention initiatives in Obamacare, patient privacy and the need for informed consent requirements, the dangers of “evidence-based medicine” and the implications of state and federal health care reform.

Twila Brase, a public health nurse and health freedom advocate, has been called one of the “100 Most Powerful People in Health Care” and one of “Minnesota’s 100 Most Influential Health Care Leaders.” She has been interviewed by CNN, Fox News, Minnesota Public Radio, NBC Nightly News, NBC’s Today Show, NPR, New York Public Radio, the Associated Press, Modern Healthcare, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Washington Times, among others. Brase shares health care-related news and commentary with the American public in her daily, 60-second radio feature, Health Freedom Minute, which airs on nearly 350 stations daily, including the 150-station American Family Radio Network and the 80-station Bott Radio Network. During these daily features, listeners can learn more about the agenda behind proposed health care initiatives, the ramifications of proposed policies and actions that can be taken to protect their health care choices, rights and privacy. Health Freedom Minute is sponsored by the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom, a patient-centered national health freedom organization based in St. Paul, Minn. CCHF supports patient and doctor freedom, medical innovation and the right of citizens to a confidential patient-doctor relationship.

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For more information or to interview Twila Brase, president and co-founder of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom, contact Deborah Hamilton, Hamilton Strategies, 215.815.7716, 610.584.1096, DHamilton@HamiltonStrategies.com.

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