To the editor:

As someone who has spent years serving our community — on city council and the board of education– I’ve seen firsthand how rising health care costs strain families, small businesses and local governments alike. Employers and families are already stretched thin, and the last thing Ohioans need is Washington oversteppingwith policies that make coverage even more expensive.

A couple of weeks ago, our own Senator Jon Husted said something that really stuck with me: “If we want to lower costs, we must deliver reforms that put patients in charge.”

He’s right. Affordability has to stay front and center. But some of the proposals being pushed in Congress right now would do the exact opposite.

Big Pharma is lobbying hard for new federal mandates that would interfere in the private health insurance market and limit the choices employers have when designing their health plans. That may be good for drug company profits, but it’s bad for the businesses and workers who are already stretched thin.

Prescription benefits are a major part of overall health care costs and employers lean on partners, like pharmacy benefit managers, to help them negotiate better prices and steer savings back to their workforce. If Washington ties the hands of these partners, those savings disappear, and costs rise for everyone else.

These mandates would take away flexibility, raise costs, and give drug companies more leverage to charge even more. That’s the wrong direction for Ohio families.

Congress should follow Senator Husted’s lead and focus on reforms that empower patients — not policies that further increase premiums and shift more control to the same companies that set sky-high drug prices to begin with.

Ohioans deserve real affordability, not government interference that makes health care more expensive.

John Morrow,

Liverpool Township,

former Wellsville Councilman and Board of Education