Editorial
When President Joe Biden signed into law the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act last November, he unleashed unprecedented actions to revitalize the crumbing physical foundation of the United States from top to bottom.
Last year, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the United States' overall infrastructure a rating of C-minus, saying "This is not a report card anyone could be proud of." The $1.2 trillion investment will modernize our infrastructure across the board: sea, land, air.
It's been nearly two months since Congress put $25 billion on President Trump's desk to expand Covid-19 testing capacity and come up with a plan to support every state and cover every American. Yet after some 116,000 lives lost, at least 44,000 in our nursing homes, the president still does not have a plan.
Over the past decade, almost every new medication brought to market was paid for by a hefty investment from taxpayer dollars. Each of these drugs was developed in the interest of a greater public good: to alleviate pain, improve health and save lives. However, accountability for public funding has not prevented pharmaceutical corporations from hiking up prices on new and existing drugs for patients, increasing the cost of prescription drugs up to 10 percent every year.
According to a November 2019 Gallup poll, approximately 58 million Americans were unable to pay for prescribed medicine in the last 12 months. And, at least 34 million people know of at least one friend or family member in the last five years who died after not receiving medical treatment, due to their inability to pay for it. Thousands of seniors die each year prematurely because they cannot afford their medications, with that number projected to hit 112,000 by 2030. Prescription drug prices are literally killing Americans.