WASHINGTON, D.C. – 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.  

Senator Welch has been a longtime champion of lowering prescription drug prices.  

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