For thousands of Ohio families, Easterseals of Central and Southeast Ohio provides programs that deliver equality, dignity, and independence to people with disabilities. For us, success is achieving a world where every child, adult, and older person is 100% included and 100% empowered.

The Ohioans we serve depend not only on support services from Easterseals but also on access to innovative medical treatments and therapies that help them live the healthiest lives possible.

I have deep concerns with the growing push for a federal Most Favored Nation (MFN) prescription drug pricing policy. While the goal of lowering drug costs is one we all share, the MFN approach imports something dangerous: it imports the values and methodologies of foreign health systems that routinely discriminate against people with disabilities. Cost containment cannot come at the expense of civil rights, scientific progress, or the foundational American belief that every life is worth investing in.

At the center of this threat is the Quality‒Adjusted Life Year (QALY), a metric widely used in European health systems to determine whether a treatment is “worth” paying for. On paper, QALYs sound like a neutral tool. In practice, they systematically undervalue the lives of people with disabilities, chronic conditions, and genetic differences like Down syndrome. A year of life lived with a disability is literally scored as worth less than a year of life lived by someone without one.

This is not a theoretical concern. Countries whose pricing systems the MFN model would emulate, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, regularly deny or delay access to breakthrough therapies because QALY‒based assessments deem them “not cost‒effective” for people whose baseline health status is considered “lower.” When the value of a life is discounted, the value of treatment follows.

By tying U.S. drug prices to those set by nations that rely on QALYs, the MFN model effectively outsources American health policy to systems that do not share our civil rights protections. It would allow discriminatory calculations–explicitly rejected by disability advocates and restricted under several U.S. laws–to influence which treatments are developed, covered, or even brought to market here.

Consider the Down syndrome community. For this patient population, researchers are on the cusp of transformative advances in precision medicine, Alzheimer’s prevention, and immune system research. If manufacturers face artificially suppressed prices based on foreign cost‒effectiveness formulas, they will have fewer incentives to invest in therapies for small or historically underserved populations–precisely the areas of science that require the greatest risk‒taking, the longest timelines, and the most supportive policy environment.

The MFN model also risks creating inequities in access. When pricing benchmarks are tied to systems that undervalue disabled lives, the result is predictable: reduced availability, longer delays, and fewer treatment options for people with disabilities.

There are better ways to lower costs without importing discriminatory standards or undermining innovation. Policymakers should focus on reforms that ensure savings reach patients directly–such as fixing insurance benefit design, improving transparency in the drug supply chain, and addressing the role of middlemen whose practices often drive up out‒of‒pocket costs.

The stakes are high. The decisions made in Washington will determine whether people living with disabilities have access to the therapies and breakthroughs they deserve. America’s leadership in medicine has always been driven by the belief that every person is worth the investment–and our policies today should reflect that same commitment. We cannot afford to get this wrong.

Pandora Shaw-Dupras is CEO of Easterseals of Central and Southeast Ohio Inc. which serves children and adults with disabilities in 37 central, southeast, and northern Ohio counties, and 1 county in West Virginia.