President signs Brown bills to help folks save money on their medications

NEW MIDDLETOWN — U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown joined Rick Carano, a pharmacist at Village Pharmacy in New Middletown, today after President Donald Trump signed the senator’s bills to help people save money on their medication at the pharmacy counter into law.

“Corporations try to squeeze every last penny out of patients, even going so far as to ban pharmacists from giving their customers information on how to save money,” said Brown, a Cleveland Democrat. “These bills are important, bipartisan steps we can take right now to crack down on big pharma hiding information from customers.”

Brown’s bill, the Patient Right to Know Drug Prices Act, cracks down on the gag clauses that prohibit pharmacists from telling customers how to save money by paying out of pocket for medicines rather than going through insurance.

The bill is a follow-up to Brown’s Know the Lowest Price Act, which passed the Senate last month. That bill would prohibit Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D Plans from restricting a pharmacy’s ability to provide drug-price information when there is a difference between the cost of the drug under the plan and the cost of the drug when purchased without insurance.