Nonprofits aren’t required to publicly disclose their donors. Some pharmaceutical companies voluntarily disclose at least some of their funding for patient groups, but the full scope of their giving is far from transparent.
A sign lines the drive up to rural doctor Emory Lewis' family practice on Dec. 12, 2011, in Reedville, Va., where he serves about 65 percent of patients insured by Medicare.
That’s not true for all of them, said Marc Boutin, the chief executive of the National Health Council, which has more than 50 patient groups and dozens of drugmakers as members. The charity’s headquarters, located behind an unmarked door in a building owned by Richard and Karen Moore, was locked on a recent weekday morning.
Kaiser Health News reported last year that 14 major drug companies gave a combined $116 million to patient groups in 2015, far more than the $63 million they spent on federal lobbying. In 2017, the group began running an informal coalition called the Protect Medicare Part D Working Group. It organized a January letter that called on Congress to reject plans for letting Medicare negotiate on drug prices; some 200 organizations signed it, including the U.S. Rural Health Network.
“We support lower prices, but we want to make sure that whatever is proposed actually makes the system better,” Gill said. Irene Bueno, a co-founder of NVG, said in an email that her firm is no longer involved in the effort; she didn’t answer questions about who funded her work. Lincoln Policy Group didn’t respond to several telephone calls and emails seeking comment.
Another patient group that popped up in 2017 shows how one pharmaceutical company tried to downplay its involvement.
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