WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa today released the following statement regarding the new guidelines put forward for pharmaceutical companies to provide additional information on prescription drug prices.
“I applaud Secretary Azar’s announcement to provide patients and their doctors with more information on prescription drug prices. Making drug prices available to consumers is a commonsense way to lower prices. No one buys a gallon of milk without knowing the price. Why should prescription drugs be any different? This announcement follows my bipartisan work with Senator Durbin to support the Administration in advancing such policy in recent legislation. Pharmaceutical companies must do more to provide transparency about their prices. That wouldn’t happen without this action from the Trump administration. “
Grassley recently spoke on the Senate floor in support of his bipartisan direct-to-consumer drug pricing amendment.
Last year, the pharmaceutical industry spent more than $6 billion in DTC advertisements, which drive up health care costs by steering patients toward more expensive, often unnecessary medications. The average American sees nine DTC prescription drug ads each day. Studies show that patients are more likely to ask their doctor for a specific brand-name medication, and doctors are more likely to prescribe one, when they have been marketed directly with drug advertisements. For these reasons, most countries have banned DTC prescription drug advertising, with the United States and New Zealand being the only two developed countries that allow it. The American Medical Association has called for a ban on DTC prescription drug advertisements, as well as mandatory price disclosure as part of prescription drug marketing.
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