State of the Union Address: Obama Pushes TPP but Protesters Disagree

Retired Americans are particularly concerned that if Obama's favorite trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, passes in Congress prescription medicine prices will be driven upwards.

Americans pay the highest prescription drug prices in the industrialized world and protesters in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco yesterday said that Congress should be working on ways to reduce drug costs, rather than making this problem worse with a bad trade deal.

They said that the Trans-Pacific Partnership would further increase prescription drug costs while lining the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry. While the focus of the protest was on drug costs, speakers also pointed out that the deal, if passed, will intensify downward pressure on wages and threaten jobs, food safety, internet freedom, and even our democracy.