Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), released the following statement regarding President Trump's executive order from this morning, which claims it will slash drug costs by tying the prices of some medicine in the U.S. to the significantly lower ones abroad.
I agree with President Trump: It is an outrage that the American people pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. It is beyond unacceptable that we pay, in some cases, 10 times more for the same exact prescription drugs than people in other major countries. But let’s be clear: The problem is not that the price of prescription drugs is too low in Europe and Canada. The problem is that the extraordinarily greedy pharmaceutical industry made over $100 billion in profits last year by ripping off the American people.
Further, as Trump well knows, his executive order will be thrown out by the courts. If Trump is serious about making real change rather than just issuing a press release, he will support legislation I will soon be introducing to make sure we pay no more for prescription drugs than people in other major countries. If Republicans and Democrats come together on this legislation, we can get it passed in a few weeks.
U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) released the following statement on President Trump’s drug pricing executive order:
“President Trump and I agree – prescription drugs are too expensive in America, and we’re getting ripped off. There is no reason pharmaceutical companies should charge American patients more than what they charge in other countries. I spoke with President Trump about this concern in his first term and he tried a similar order to lower drug costs, but ultimately it wasn’t durable. Senator Hawley and I have a bill to lower drug prices through international reference pricing – the Fair Prescription Drug Prices for Americans Act. I encourage the President to get on board with our bipartisan bill so we can lower prescription drug prices for good.”
Senators Welch and Hawley recently introduced the Fair Prescription Drug Prices for Americans Act, bipartisan legislation to lower drug prices for Americans. This bill prohibits pharmaceutical companies from selling drugs in the United States at higher prices than an international average, ending the practice of forcing Americans to pay the world’s highest prices for medications. Welch and Hawley’s legislation would correct decades of policies that benefited pharmaceutical companies but left American patients holding the bag. Americans pay substantially more than patients in other developed nations for the same prescription drugs. The bill would also impose stiff civil monetary penalties on pharmaceutical companies that violate this rule.
