WASHINGTON – Efforts to allow Americans access to cheaper prescription drugs from abroad should blossom once Democrats assume control in Congress, but it won’t be a top priority, lawmakers and health care experts said.
Members of the House and the Senate are gearing up for a renewed push to change federal law and permit broader imports of prescription drugs from Canada and elsewhere, where certain medicines can cost less than two-thirds what they do in the United States. Their hope is the imports will drive down prices at home.
“The pressure is not to tell people you have to go outside this country to buy prescription drugs. The pressure is to force the pharmaceutical companies to re-price their drugs in the U.S.,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat who has introduced with Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a bill to make importation of prescription drugs legal.
The issue remains overwhelmingly popular with voters, even though the government estimates it would do little to actually cut the prices Americans pay for prescription drugs. And there is continued opposition to imported drugs as well.
Still, Republicans and Democrats alike see the shift in control of Congress as an opportunity to advance previously blocked legislation. The issue generally is called reimportation, since many of the medicines are made in the United States or by U.S. companies.
“Things were headed in the right direction with reimportation to begin with, but the election will speed up that process because it’s removed leadership that was opposed to reimportation. I am a Republican and support (the) leadership in general, but on reimportation they were opposed to it,” said Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana.
Vitter and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., recently sponsored legislation to halt the seizure of imported Canadian drugs for personal use – something the government now allows only on a limited basis.
And Vitter continues to block confirmation of Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, President Bush’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration, until federal drug import laws are further relaxed.
As for the FDA, the agency says it can’t vouch for the safety or efficacy of imported drugs. This summer, the FDA said testing revealed fake versions of Lipitor and other widely used prescription drugs ordered through Web sites linked to a Canadian pharmacy but shipped from other countries.
The drug industry, which generally opposes such legislation, is bracing for an onslaught.
Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has made cheaper prescription drugs part of her immediate plans for the House. Yet Pelosi’s focus is on negotiating lower prices with drug companies for Medicare beneficiaries. The same goes for Sen. Harry Reid, the next Senate majority leader. Reid spokesman Jim Manley said reimportation was among “a whole host of other issues.”
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