Senate bill would allow importing Canadian drugs

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate voted Friday to allow drugs to be imported from Canada, where prices are lower than in the United States, acting for the second time in as many days to hold down the cost of prescription medication.

Even before the 62-28 roll call, the Food and Drug Administration signaled strongly it might use its authority to block the change, warning of a potential security breach and saying it "cannot guarantee the safety of the drugs."
But that, in turn, drew skepticism from Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., the chief sponsor of the proposal. He said the Canadian drug supply chain was virtually identical to the one in this country. "It's virtually impossible ... to make a safety issue" out of the proposal, he said.

The Canadian importation provision was added to far-reaching Medicare legislation making its way toward Senate passage next week. That measure would create a new prescription drug benefit for senior citizens, with coverage to be provided by government-subsidize private insurance companies.

In addition, it would create a new managed care option for beneficiaries, who would be given the choice of giving up traditional Medicare and enrolling in a preferred provider organization along the lines of plans that now cover millions of working Americans. Overall, the measure would cost $400 billion over the next decade.

Companion legislation is advancing toward a vote in the House next week, and top lawmakers are likely to spend July trying to fashion a compromise. President Bush has made passage of a Medicare bill a priority, saying he wants not only the prescription drug benefit for seniors, but also enough free-market competition to give them more health care choices. At the same time, the White House is seeking changes in Medicare that will solidify finances in advance of a wave of retirements of the baby boom generation.

The vote on drug importation from Canada came one day after the Senate voted to allow generic drug makers to bring their lower-cost medicine to market faster than the current regulatory system allows.

Residents in several states have long made trips to Canada or Mexico to save money on prescription drugs. And while Congress has voted in the past to permit reimportation of drugs from several nations, both the Clinton administration and the Bush administration exercised a provision in the law to block the changes by refusing to certify that the pharmaceutical medicine could be guaranteed safe.
This time, Dorgan limited the proposal to Canadian drugs, a step meant to meet those concerns.

return to Articles > Online Prescriptions