Washington DC  -  The high cost of prescription drugs is a bitter pill to swallow for America’s senior citizens.  Yet, in more and more cases, it is the only pill available on a regular basis for Americans who need life-saving medicines.

 A prescription drug to treat high cholesterol called Pravachol costs $155 at a Washington, DC pharmacy.  The same package of medication costs just $63 in Germany.  Right down the street from where our federal elected officials conduct their business, the pharmaceutical industry is holding Americans hostage with the highest prescription drug prices in the world.

 In Missouri and nationwide, Americans are cutting Pravochol and other pills in half to offset the enormous cost of their prescriptions.  Seniors are skipping pills, in some cases whole months of them, to make ends meet.  Even more must choose between food and lifesaving medicine.

 Prevacid, a medication used to fight acid reflux, costs $128 at a major American pharmacy.  The same dosage and quantity of medicine is available from Canada for $70.  Similar costs comparisons for Lipitor, Premarin, and Zoloft (prescribed to lower cholesterol, fight osteoperosis, and combat depression, respectively) show that across the boards, we pay 30 to 40 percent more for our medicines than our Canadian neighbors.

 One of the major contributors to the higher prices in the U.S. is the lack of access to the protected pharmaceutical market.  More than $30 billion of our tax dollars goes to subsidize the research and development of new medicines.  Then pharmaceutical companies, who pay next to nothing for the privilege, sell those pills back to the American senior citizen at the world’s highest prices.  This does not strike me as a good deal for the people of Missouri’s 8th District.

 Before Congress adjourned in July, however, a bipartisan coalition in the House of Representatives passed legislation to bring market competition to America’s pharmacies.  By licensing pharmacies and wholesalers to import from 26 of the world’s developed countries, we would be opening American markets to a safe, secure, and affordable supply of prescriptions medications.
 
 I was shocked to learn that 40 percent of the prescription drugs bought by Americans come from overseas already – they are produced in other countries and imported by drug companies.  Only they have access to the American market. 

 The other way to get access to the lower-priced medicines in other countries is to go there yourself.  And it is estimated that over a million Americans do go to Canada or Mexico to fill their prescriptions.  About once every 90 days, buses leave retirement communities for a trip to the pharmacies right across the border so seniors can refill their prescriptions. 

 In Southern Missouri, we do not have the luxury of living near the border pharmacies.  Nor can we, in what the most recent U.S. Census determined is the eleventh-poorest congressional district in the nation by median household income, readily afford the artificially high costs of filling our prescriptions.

 In the end, the American senior citizen pays for this bad policy.  The Congressional Budget Office expects Americans will spend $1.8 trillion on prescription drugs over the next ten years.  At an average cost savings of 35 percent, that means $630 billion to the American people – roughly double the size of the most recent tax cut.

 Importation would require that the Food and Drug Administration assure that the supply of prescription drugs be subject to a strict set of “chain of custody” requirements.  In fact, the standards for pharmaceuticals would be stricter than existing regulations for imported food products.

 A policy enabling pharmacies to import and sell prescription drugs from other countries would extend lower prices to Missouri and every other state in the nation.  As legislation to meet this need progresses through Congress, be assured I will fight for it at every step of the way.

 I was raised to put people before politics.  When we have the chance to bring safe medicines back into this country and make them affordable for our seniors, we must.  And we have the chance now.