Medications that are life saving have become out of reach for many families causing them to go without or pay up for all-of-a-sudden expensive drugs. Are you one of these families? Not only are customers upset, but so are politicians, and they are not holding back.

Increased prices have been happening for a while now, but it came to my attention when I read a news article about Mylan, the sole maker of the EpiPen in the United States. EpiPens are a medical instrument used to treat consumers who have a life threatening allergy. Their purpose is to prevent the user’s throat from closing until Emergency Response can reach them. Their EpiPens originally costed $57 in 2007, but in 2016, a package of two cost $600. That is a $543 difference in only nine years. According to an article in Crain’s Chicago Business, the United States is the only one who has had this issue with EpiPens and that has been do to a lack of competition. To compare our prices, let’s look at France where two EpiPens cost $100, and in Germany they cost $200. So a question that might come to mind is, why do ours cost so much?

You can see the price differences of other drugs in the chart below. The only difference between these examples and the one above is that these are generic drugs. So not only are original drug prices increasing but so are generic drugs.

This chart shows the increased prices of generic drugs within 2010-2015.

Aaron Kesselheim a medical doctor at Harvard Medical School said “One of the reasons generic drugs are inexpensive is that there is competition in the market, when that competition goes away, prices will rise.” From 2002 – 2013, the number of manufacturers producing oral digoxin the drug that treats congestive heart failure dropped from eight to three.

Many companies will increase the prices of their drugs to protect themselves from new regulations to the market. According to Stephen Schondelmeyer, coauthor of the AARP’s drug pricing reports says that one of the reasons why companies are increasing their prices now is because of the Affordable Care Act. Others have disagreed with Schondelmeyer because they feel that this is mostly due to price gouging. The worst thing about all of this is that what the companies are doing is not illegal.

Feeling the pressure, both candidates in the 2016 election have had things to say about all of this. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are on the same side when it comes to this issue but they have different plans on how to tackle it.

Clinton has tackled this issue by tweeting about Mylan. According to Paul R. La Monica, Clinton’s tweet said how the EpiPen medication can be the difference between life and death and how “there is no justification for the price hikes.” After this tweet was sent out, the iShares U.S. Pharmaceutical exchange-traded fund went down by five percent. Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Merck, and Mylan are the top holders that make up that group. September 21,  2015, Clinton was at it again tweeting about price gouging of the specialty drug market. Once again, the prices of stock companies began to dwindle due to the words of Clinton.

Tim Kaine, The Vice Presidential Candidate in this 2016 Election has the same visions on how to act on these price hacks. In an exclusive interview with CNBC’s Kelly Evans, Kaine said how he wanted to government to negotiate over prescription drugs. He strongly feels that having the government interfere with this will save seniors and the government a lot of money that could be used on something else.

The Democratic Party has a strong stance on these price hikes. According to their party platform, Democrats want to accomplish four things. First, they want to crack down on price gouging by drug companies and reduce the amount Americans pay out of pocket each month. Second, Democrats want to prohibit anticompetitive deals that keep generic drugs off of the shelves. They will allow individuals, pharmacists, and wholesalers to import prescription drugs, but they have to be licensed. Finally, they want to have Medicare negotiate lower prices with the drug manufactures. Democrats take this stance because they feel that the United States has the highest prices on prescription drugs in the world.

Trump has spoken about this issue as well, but he has been more vague when addressing it. When you go on his website, under “Healthcare Reform To Make America Great Again,” you can read all about what he plans to do. His stance on this issue is that the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) is completely to blame, and his running mate, Mike Pence, agrees.

This issue is important to me because I am in the group that needs a life-saving prescription drug, and it is getting harder and harder for my family to provide this for me. Seeing the prices rise on things that many of us can not live without is upsetting, and I feel that this practice needs to change.

I agree with both candidates and believe that the government should negotiate the prices of drugs so that companies do not pocket profit that they do not need. Skyrocketing prices on prescription drugs need to come to an end and that time is now.