Reimportation Bill Supported by TSCL Delayed In Senate

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Reimportation Bill Supported by TSCL Delayed In Senate

Prescription drug reimportation from countries with lower prices like Canada appears to have the support it needs in Congress to become law. Yet a vote on the legislation in the Senate was recently delayed, in large part over differences as to how reimportation should be implemented.

Earlier this year Senators Byron Dorgan and Olympia Snowe — along with others — introduced S. 2328, a bill to allow the reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada and certain other nations. The bill would provide what TSCL believes is safe access to pharmaceuticals and also includes provisions to impose penalties on manufacturers interfering with reimportation, such as those who would limit drug supplies or raise prices. That bill is endorsed by TSCL and has widespread support in the Senate.

The TSCL legislative team met with a dozen Senators and their staffs in July to urge them to support S.2328, or to thank them for already having done so. We also sent a letter to Senator Edward Kennedy, the ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, expressing our support for the measure. In it, TSCL Chairman Smith wrote, “Some who oppose drug importation say they are concerned about the safety of the medicines from other countries. But right now, some one million Americans or more buy medicines from Canada, according to Manitoba International Pharmacists, and there have been no reported deaths from those drugs. Included in the bill is the requirement of importers to have a full pedigree to track the medicine from manufacturer to customer. Further, S.2328 seeks to assuage those who are concerned about the safety issue by providing for inspection of Canadian exportation sites.”

Senator Judd Gregg, Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, introduced his own reimportation measure that contains no such penalties. TSCL believes the Gregg bill has too many loopholes and ways for the drug companies to get around provisions. Recently several drug companies have limited their supplies of drugs to Canadian pharmacies that sell to U.S. consumers.

Congress has passed reimportation legislation several times before, in 2000 and again last year under the new Medicare drug legislation — but each time provisions were inserted that prevented implementation. The pharmaceutical industry with more than 600 lobbyists is aggressively fighting reimportation. Critics frequently refer to it as “importing price controls,” which manufacturers say threatens research and development of new life-savings drugs. Our government however, has “approved” fees and reimbursement levels for virtually every other health care provider under Medicare, including hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, home health care services, durable medical equipment and, the few drugs that Medicare already covers.

According to a recent story in The New York Times, the pharmaceutical industry earns nearly two-thirds of its profits in the United States since drug prices in most of the rest of the industrialized world are based on other nation’s government healthcare systems. According to The New York Times, “Those profits rely almost entirely on laws that protect the industry from cheap imports, delay home-grown knockoffs (generics), give away government medical discoveries, allow steep tax breaks for research expenditures, and forbid government officials from demanding discounts while requiring them to buy certain drugs.”

TSCL believes reimportation would allow seniors to immediately cut their spending on prescription drugs. Meanwhile, Congress should move to amend recent Medicare legislation to allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices as the VA system does now.

If you don’t know who your Senators are, you can find out by clicking here: http://www.tscl.org/action/GuidetoContactingCongress.asp

Sources: “Markup of Gregg Reimportation Bill Delayed Again Due to Schedule,” Klaus Marre, The Hill, July 21, 2004. “Drug Companies Seek to Mend Their Image,” Gardiner Harris, The New York Times, July 8, 2004.

September 2004