America’s Affordability Crisis: Fueled by Big Pharma’s Rigged Game

As lawmakers ramp up their campaigns ahead of November’s midterm elections, voters are sending a clear message: the cost of everyday life in America has outpaced what families can afford. From groceries to housing to childcare, the basic math of getting by no longer adds up, and affordability is on the ballot.

However, there’s one industry that’s working overtime to dodge accountability before November: Big Pharma.

Arizona families have been bearing the brunt of Big Pharma’s annual price hikes, and they’re demanding action. Four in five Arizonans say that they are concerned about prescription drug prices, with two-thirds of Arizonans believing that candidates ought to prioritize lowering prescription drug prices.

That’s for good reason.

For decades, drugmakers have rigged the system to protect their bottom line and keep drug prices high, and now they’re pulling out all the stops to reframe the drug pricing narrative ahead of the midterm elections. They do not want to acknowledge their central role in fueling America’s affordability crisis.

That’s why the Pharmaceutical Reform Alliance (PRA) – a nationwide, bipartisan coalition that spotlights Big Pharma’s undue influence in keeping drug prices high – just released a reportexposing Big Pharma’s multi-pronged playbook that keeps Americans paying more for their essential medications.

For starters, drugmakers have gamed the patent system to keep cheaper, generic drugs from reaching the market so we are forced to pay for more expensive brand name medications. Big Pharma does this through anti-competitive and anti-American tactics like pay-for-delay agreements, patent thicketing, evergreening, and citizen petition delays.

These strategies cost American consumers tens of billions of dollars each year, boxing out companies that would lower drug prices. That’s anti-American – full-stop.

Big Pharma’s role in America’s affordability crisis goes deeper than anti-competitive practices. Drugmakers that claim to need astronomical profits to fund R&D instead buy their way to dominance rather than creating new drugs and treatments, with roughly half of blockbuster drugs approved between 2014 and 2023 coming from acquisitions, not internal R&D.

Meanwhile, Big Pharma continues to pad its expenditures with excessive lobbying spending designed to stop lawmakers from holding the industry accountable. The pharmaceutical industry’s largest trade association spent a record $37.9 million on lobbying in 2025 – more than double what it spent a decade ago – to block reforms that would help patients.

And pharmaceutical CEOs? They're cashing in with record compensation packages, including one executive who took home $32.4 million. That's money that could have funded patient assistance programs or reduced prices on lifesaving medications.

Making America more affordable requires holding Big Pharma accountable. Americans across the political spectrum know Big Pharma is to blame for high drug prices. We agree on the problem, and we agree on the solution: it’s time to put patients over pharmaceutical profits. Lawmakers have the power to do something about it. It’s time they take action and codify the Trump administration’s Most Favored Nation (MFN) drug pricing policy to lower prescription drug prices once and for all.

J.D. Hayworth represented Arizona in the U.S. House from 1995-2007, and is spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Reform Alliance.