Senate President Therese Murray filled a bill Monday that would ban pharmaceutical agents from giving gifts of any kind to doctors. If voted, the bill would make Massachusetts the first sate in the country to ban such gifts outright.

The ban forbids the pharmaceutical industry from giving, and doctors, their families or employees from receiving gifts from drug companies. Gifts include payments, entertainment, meals, travel, honorariums, subscriptions, even a pen with a drug company logo. Massachusetts law already prohibits gifts to legislators and other public officials of “anything of substantial value,” or anything worth more than $50.

The bill is part of Murray’s legislation that seeks to control massive cost increases that are crippling the state’s budget and impeding efforts to eliminate gaps in medical care.

“We have to do something, and we have to do something now. There has been a 60 percent increase in the last six years in health care costs. We cannot sustain that,” Murray said during a press conference at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, according to the Boston Herald.

The legislation would still continue to permit distribution of drug samples to doctors for the exclusive use of their patients. Anyone who violates the ban could be fined $5,000, face two years imprisonment, or both, under the proposal.

This is not the first time when such a bill is proposed. Back in 2005, state Senator Mark C. Montigny, a New Bedford Democrat was a sustainer of the bill. In fact, he said he was “very pleased” to see it included in Murray’s proposal.

The bill also requires statewide adoption of electronic medical records by 2015, which would improve patient safety and would lower costs. This would allow patients to choose nurse practitioners as primary care providers.

Murray and top Senate colleagues said they would attempt to fast track the bill and win passage by July. A hearing is scheduled for March 12.