Augusta, ME – A new report from the Maine Independent exposed Susan Collins’ long record of voting against “proposals to lower the costs of prescription medication.” According to the report, while Collins has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from the pharmaceutical industry, she’s voted against bills that “capped out-of-pocket prescription drug and insulin costs for millions” and to advance bills that “cut taxes for pharmaceutical companies.”

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The American Independent: Susan Collins has a record of voting against lower drug prices

By Josh Israel

August 19, 2026

• Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins is seeking reelection, in part by promoting her record of making prescription drugs more affordable. During her time in Congress, however, she has repeatedly opposed proposals to lower the costs of prescription medication.

• […] A Maine Independent analysis of Federal Election Commission data found that Collins’ campaign and her Dirigo leadership political action committee have received more than $400,000 from pharmaceutical PACs since her first Senate campaign in 1996. According to the nonpartisan site OpenSecrets, Collins has accepted more than $618,000 in donations from pharmaceutical industry PACs and those companies’ employees during her political career.

• […] In 2003, Collins voted for the Prescription Drug and Medicare Improvement Act, a law creating the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit program. The text of the legislation included a pharmaceutical-industry-backed noninterference clause, expressly prohibiting the federal government from negotiating with drug companies to lower the price of medications.

• […] Democratic majorities in Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which lifted that ban and authorized Medicare to negotiate lower costs, over the strong opposition of the pharmaceutical industry. Collins voted against the law, which also capped out-of-pocket prescription drug and insulin costs for millions of Medicare subscribers…

• Collins also voted to bring the One Big Beautiful Bill to the Senate floor in June 2025. That law […]reduced the number of drugs eligible for Medicare price negotiations and cut taxes for pharmaceutical companies and other businesses.

• […] During a June 2022 Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions markup of a Food and Drug Administration safety bill, Collins voted against a proposed amendment offered by Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders to allow prescription drugs to be imported from Canada, the United Kingdom, and other countries that follow comparable safety standards. […]

• At a June 2026 committee markup of a bill regulating generic medications, Collins opposed another Sanders amendment to end monopoly protections that grant pharmaceutical manufactures a monopoly on certain medications if those companies charge more for those medications in the United States than they do, on average, in other countries.