SCARBOROUGH, ME – Today, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) announced his support for the End Taxpayer Subsidies for Drug Ads Act, a bill that would prohibit pharmaceutical companies from using tax deductions related to “direct-to-consumer” advertising of prescription drugs. The United States is one of only two countries that allows “direct-to-consumer” pharmaceutical advertising. The announcement came at the Southern Maine Agency on Aging in Scarborough, where Senator King hosted a discussion on prescription drug pricing with healthcare advocates and patients facing high costs.

“All across our state, Maine people are struggling to cope with high prices for the medication they need,” said Senator King. “While our citizens are hurting, drug companies are spending massive amounts of money to advertise their products to consumers – and even worse, they are able to write off these expenses on their taxes. By removing the tax-incentive that enables these companies to spend so much on advertising, these companies will be forced to focus on their responsibilities: researching and developing new treatments to keep our nation healthy, and providing medicine at an affordable cost to the American people.”

Senator King has supported commonsense legislation to drive down the costs of medication in the United States. In the May edition of his monthly Inside Maine podcast, Senator King discussed programs to help Maine people save money on medications with Sarah Jones, the Program Coordinator of MedAccess and Trish Riley, Executive Director of the National Academy for State Health Policy. In March, he discussed his legislative efforts to reduce drug prices at the Maine Veterans’ Home in Augusta, highlighting his cosponsorship of both the Drug-Price Transparency in Communications Act, which requires the cost of medications to be disclosed to both consumers and prescribers, and the Creating and Restoring Access to Equivalent Samples (CREATES) Act, which seeks to increase access to generic medications. During the health care debate in July 2017, Senator King outlined a roadmap of priorities to stabilize the marketplace and lower the costs of treatment and coverage for people across the country. Included in his roadmap was the Safe and Affordable Drugs from Canada Act, bipartisan legislation that would allow for the importation of drugs from licensed Canadian pharmacies for personal use if they have the same active ingredients, route of administration, dosage form, and strength as a prescription drug approved by the FDA. Senator King also supports the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act, legislation that would allow the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs under Medicare.