WMUR Highlights Senator Hassan’s Bipartisan Push to Cut Prescription Drug Costs

WASHINGTON – In case you missed it, earlier this week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee passed Senator Hassan’s bipartisan measures that will lower prescription drug costs by increasing generic drug competition.

See coverage highlights from WMUR here or below:

WMUR’s Monica Hernandez: Life-saving prescription drugs can be costly, forcing families to cut costs just to be able to afford important medications. Recent action taken in Washington brings those costs one step closer to coming down. WMUR's Marissa Tansino joins us live now with details on that; Marissa.  

WMUR’s Marissa Tansino: Monica, this was a bipartisan effort that Senator Maggie Hassan sponsored to bring generic drug costs down and get them on the market faster. The idea behind it is to make generic drug companies more equipped to compete with Big Pharma. Senator Hassan says getting the lower cost generic drugs on the market faster and with more transparency will help in this effort.

Georgetown University says average out-of-pocket prescription drug cost for all adults is around $177 a year. But that number jumps to more than $400 for people age 65 to 79. And it really only goes up from there as you get older. This bill aims to improve that market and the Senator is optimistic it will make its way through the necessary steps to become a reality for American families. 

Senator Hassan: The House has passed similar legislation, so that's a very good sign and we are hopeful that as we build support for the bill that it will get over the finish line in the next few months. What's really important here is that we do everything we can to improve competition.  

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