Learning why you are paying 13 to nearly 70 times more than those living in Europe for asthma inhalers is part of an investigation launched by Senator Tammy Baldwin and other Democratic lawmakers this week. Baldwin, a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, sent letters to the four most prominent producers of asthma inhalers to dive into their high prices, ranging from $200 to $600 in the United States. Those same inhalers cost between $7 and $50 in countries like the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. With 25 million Americans living with asthma and having to purchase inhalers many times every month, Baldwin says they deserve answers. She is happy that pharmaceutical price transparency is a bipartisan concern.

In their letters to the pharmaceutical companies, the senators wrote that the high prices “force patients, especially the uninsured and underinsured, to ration doses or abandon their prescriptions altogether.” According to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, asthma-related issues were responsible for 17,981 emergency department visits, 2,011 hospitalizations, and 71 deaths.