Families USA Submits Testimony Opposing Drug Exemptions in Colorado

On April 2, 2026, Sophia Tripoli, senior director of health policy at Families USA, submitted written testimony to the Colorado Senate Health and Human Services Committee, in opposition of SB26-140. This proposed bill would create harmful drug exemptions from Colorado’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board’s affordability Review and setting Upper Payment Limits.

Colorado has been a national leader in the fight against high and rising health care prices. It was the first state to implement an upper payment limit, and the second to establish a PDAB — two of the most promising and effective policy tools available to states to lower prescription drug prices. Yet SB26-140 would undermine this progress by carving out a broad category of drugs from review, weakening the state’s ability to deliver lower health care costs to patients and consumers right when they need it most.

Efforts by drug companies to secure exemptions for narrow classes of drugs are not isolated, nor are they merely policy tweaks — they are part of a broader, deliberate strategy to weaken drug pricing reforms piece by piece. Rather than pursuing a full repeal of reasonable pricing limitations that would draw public scrutiny, the industry is advancing incremental carve-outs designed to quietly erode consumer protections and return to a business model that enabled unchecked price gouging of both government budgets and patient pocketbooks.