Health Care & Prescription Drugs

Current Campaigns

Making Health Care Work

The health reform legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by the President will make health care work for our country by lowering costs for Americans and once and for all level the playing field between American families and insurance companies.

Here are the immediate benefits that this new law will provide American consumers this year:

• Prohibits pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;

• Prohibits dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;

• Lowers seniors prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;

• Offers tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;

• Eliminates lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;

• Requires plans to cover an enrollee's dependent children until age 26;

• Requires new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations;

• Ensures consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;

• Offers uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions the choice of enrolling in insurance provided through a temporary high-risk pool;

• Requires premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.

Click here to see WISPIRG's Report Card on America's new health reform law.

Safe & Affordable Prescription Drugs

Pharmaceutical companies make the medicines that enable us to live healthier, longer lives. But their business practices also drive up drug prices and increase the risk of harmful side effects, and their strong-armed lobbying has blocked needed reforms. Read more.

Overview

In a country with a world-renowned medical reputation, we expect drug companies to rigorously test and truthfully market their drugs. We expect that Americans have the means to treat illnesses, and hospitals will put our health and safety over all other concerns.

But prescription drug prices are soaring, the Vioxx tragedy demonstrates that drugs are not always safe, and infections at hospitals kill too many patients. Health insurance plans too often fail to provide the coverage or treatments we need.

Too often, it is powerful special interests that are keeping our country from fulfilling our expectations of health and safety. WISPIRG works to counter their influence and protect the health of all Wisconsinites.

Video from our colleagues at Healthcare for America Now (HCAN), a broad coalition of which WISPIRG is a member.

To find our how you representative voted, click here. To call you representative -- to thank him or her if they voted yes, or to give him or her a piece of your mind if they voted no -- call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121. Just tell the operator your zip code, and her or she will connect you.

To see more videos on health care reform, click here.