A bill to reduce the cost of prescription drugs has been passed by committee and was co-authored by an Iowa senator. Republican Charles Grassley co-authored the bill with Ron Wyden, a democrat from Oregon. It passed out of the Senate Finance Committee with a 19-9 vote and now Grassley is looking for it to get more support.

He said the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will save Americans $100 billion, “CBO says it lowers Medicare’s out-of-pocket costs, lowers premiums. It will even have some positive impact on the commercial market. It caps out-of-pocket costs to give people peace of mind. It increases transparency, and with transparency comes accountability and the marketplace will work. What’s wrong with high drug prices now, there’s so much secrecy in their pricing, so much secrecy in how you negotiate the rebates. So this is my bill to get it down.” He said the next step is getting more support, “The White House has supported my bill out of committee, but I want the president to start speaking more about it. We’ve got to get more Republican co-sponsors because Big Pharma has much power with too many Republican Senators and we’ve got to get them talked out of supporting Big Pharma, big prices increases, et cetera, et cetera.”

After that, he says the next step would be then to negotiate with the House of Representatives on their bill to modify it so it can get a super-majority to vote in support of it.