Floor Remarks by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
“Live Unanimous Consent Request to Pass the Drug-price Transparency for Consumers (DTC) Act”
Wednesday, July 23, 2025
I’d like to put this in the simplest form I can – by watching television all the time, prices are showing up all the time, for this product or that product.
I don’t know how many times I see something costs $9.99 or $19.99. Or, the price of an automobile for $26,000.
But, when it comes to prescription drugs, presumably, there is something very sensitive about this that they don’t want to tell us what it’s going to cost.
Of course, that irritates me. But, the more important thing, it’s not fair to the consumer.
Today, we’ve got a president, we have a vice president [and] we have a Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) all on record supporting this commonsense measure to require prescription drug ads to list the price of a drug.
In fact, I discussed this with the HHS secretary prior to his confirmation, and he told me he thought it could be done by regulation.
It’s my understanding they’re studying doing it by regulation, and I wish they would hurry up and get it done, whether it’s done by law or whether it’s done by regulation.
This is something that should be done.
I want to say that I think my colleagues know that lowering the cost of prescription drugs is a top priority of mine, no more than it is Senator Durbin’s.
Without their prescription medication, millions of Americans would not survive.
As a nation, we’re blessed to live in a country where investment and innovation unlock cures and treatments, some of them that even refer to as miracle cures.
But the escalating prices of prescription drugs are a consuming concern for millions of Americans, including in my state of Iowa, who bring up this very subject regularly at my county meetings.
There are many reasons for the high cost of prescription drugs.
It could be the lack of competition and abusive practices. It could be opaque and powerful drug middlemen that we call pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), and a lack of transparency on prices.
And, by the way, I just mentioned PBMs. There’s at least 65 to 70 senators who are cosponsors of one or more bills, at least three bills that exist, out of three different committees, that want more transparency with PBMs.
And, somehow, we ought to be able to get that up. And, hopefully, we’ll be successful before this year is out.
So, I’m working in all three of these areas I just told you about to advance bipartisan solutions.
When voluntarily choosing to promote medications over the airwaves, manufacturers are already required to disclose safety and side effects.
Yet, for many patients, price plays a primary role in clinical adherence.
There’s a lot of value in knowing a prescription drug’s list price. This is the most accessible and standardized price of a drug, which is set by the manufacturer itself.
Despite efforts from Big Pharma to stop our bill, I’m confident that the American consumer will continue to demand the kind of price transparency that they deserve.
President Trump, Vice President Vance and Secretary Kennedy will also continue to fight [along] with us.
If critics have solutions to make our bill better, come to the table. Present your ideas. Work with us.
And also, I want to thank the Chairman of the Finance Committee. He’s a friend. He may be against this bill today, but he’s very much an advocate for PBM reform. I thank you, Senator, for doing that.
The Finance Committee, along with several other committees in the Senate, has bipartisan PBM reform ready to pass the Senate.
The president has made it clear he wants to see PBM transparency and accountability.
And we must tackle the cost of prescription drugs through more competition, PBM reform and, of course, through the sunshine on drug prices that Senator Durbin and I are proposing.
-30-