March 12, 2024--The Colorado House Health and Human Services Committee heard testimony regarding HB24-1115 which would require pharmacies to provide accessible prescription labeling services like audible, large print and Braille labels for those who are living with visual or other print impairments.
HB24-1115 is sponsored by Representative Mary Young, whose own father has vision loss, Representative Junie Joseph and Senator Steve Fenberg. It has been several years in the making and had much stakeholder engagement on both sides, including patients, disability advocates and pharmacies.
The hearing began with several amendments introduced requested by the pharmacy industry to make compliance easier. The greatest concerns to the pharmacies were the impact it would have on already low margins of profit on prescriptions. With this in mind one of the amendments was to create a grant fund of $80,000 to provide pharmacies hardship grants of $1500 to assist with the purchase of necessary equipment to begin offering accessible labeling services.
Pharmacists Kai Davis and Dr Lucas Smith provided testimony regarding the challenges already facing rural pharmacies and a summary of ways they are already helping patients, including QR codes that take you to drug information, compliance strip packaging and two week cartridges with reminder alarms.
During the question time, Representative David Ortiz spoke frankly, "Basic access is not an additional service. Full Stop. Stop saying that. Stop couching it in that language. It is a basic human right. And you are not "helping us" by doing the bare minimum. Strike that from your lexicon as you speak about this. Do you understand how ablest that is?" At that point the Chair muted the hearing and called the committee back to order.
Testimony was also provided by Curtis Chung of the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado who demonstrated a ScripTalk audible prescription label using his iphone. "God bless those pharmacies that have already done it. I've said in other fora in Colorado, it's like the wild west for us blind people in the state of Colorado to get accessible prescriptions labels right now. So having something that makes it consistently available everywhere would be a huge boon to people who cannot see, or see so badly or have other print disabilities."
Jack Johnson of Disability Law Colorado addressed the rural pharmacy request for a period of time to acquire equipment after a request so they don't have to get equipment until they get a request for accommodation. "We have been very open to working with them. I think there is a question around how do we do that without it being a pure cure period because cure periods tend to be a problem when it comes to civil rights law. And also how do we address it if a patient has some kind of imminent risk, like they need their medication immediately? This issue should be addressed with another amendment before the floor vote.
Testimony was also provided by Elizabeth Moran, Executive Director of the ARC of Colorado, whose sister is an individual with a developmental disability and whose father is aging with Alzheimer's. She is heartened by several measures of this bill especially the "no cost to the patient" provision, that pharmacies would provide "sustained, periodic and reasonable efforts to inform the public", and following the best practices of the US Access Board.
Later, during the closing remarks, Rep. Ortiz apologized for his heated remarks earlier, "I apologize for turning what should have been a teachable
moment into a scolding; but I’m going to reiterate that teachable moment folks:
which is that access—basic access—is not a favor.
You are not “helping us out.” It is the law.
Can you imagine if we gave out prescriptions without labels at all? How
many people would die? That’s how you
have to think about this. All you are
doing is doing what the law already says you should be doing. And making sure – it’s not just about
independence – making sure that those that are living with visual impairment
can access their medications safely.
No one else talks about cost when we are talking about fire
code—when abled bodies are threatened, we just do it. When we are talking about
dimensions for stairs, for safety, or everything else we do when it comes to
the safety of abled bodies. We do
it.
That’s what I am trying to advocate for you all to think of
when I say ‘basic access’, especially for something as essential and life-saving
as medication.”
Representative Wineburg also provided closing comments, "I walked into this an absolute no today and I'll be honest, I've been flipped. I am a solid Yes. The demonstration from the gentleman --thank you so much -- plus everything else -- yeah, this is a good bill. I thank you for presenting it."
The bill passed with a vote of 11 yes with 2 excused. It heads now to appropriations.
You can read the full text and track the status of the bill here: https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1115
Link to the hearing audio:
HB24-1115 begins at 12:22
Rep Otiz's comments begin at 1:07:33
