“A key effort to put pressure on prescription drug prices in the United States with a policy of importation is gaining new momentum.  After ten years of working on this policy, the fresh support for importation is a welcome sight that might get Congress moving on a crucial issue for our time, and for millions of baby boomers on the cusp of retirement.

The idea is one that many American senior citizens have already begun to solve on their own.  Almost always, the prescriptions drugs available for sale in America are priced higher than the exact same medicine offered by a pharmacist in another country. 

Today, millions of Americans take matters into their own hands and cross the U.S.-Canada border to purchase 60-to-90-day supplies of their prescriptions.  It’s a hardship for many of them to travel, certainly, but it is not as daunting as having to choose between high-priced name-brand prescription drugs and food or rent or other healthcare expenses.

Worse than this, the high costs of medicine force others into the unregulated black market for prescriptions.  They might mail-order or buy their pills on the Internet from a pharmacy that says it is in Canada, but they may have no way of knowing.  The pills they get might be what they ordered, but they may not have been kept at the proper temperatures.  They may have been tampered with.  They might be harmless counterfeits, or they might be harmful ones.  All this risk just to be able to afford the medicines that fight illness, protect health, prolong lives and save them.

 
The reason for the difference between prescription drug prices at home and abroad is simple – the pharmaceutical companies control the market.  They are the only entity allowed to cross the barrier between markets, and in fact more than half of the prescriptions filled in America are with pills imported by the drug companies.  As a result, they are able to charge Americans, who use more prescription drugs than any other people in the world, the highest prices for their medicines.
 
The ripple effect of these high prices through the health care system is astonishing and sobering.  The pharmaceutical companies are one of the most powerful lobbies in Congress, and they routinely get special treatment to help their bottom lines and keep out competition.  As patients skip days of their prescription regimens or stop filling expensive prescriptions altogether, their health also declines, increasing the odds of an otherwise preventable trip to the doctor or the emergency room.  When this happens, health care costs for everyone go up yet again.

Importation solves the problem by opening the routes of trade to pharmacies and wholesalers who obtain a license certifying that they are participating in the regulated markets.  That way, the pills they sell are the same and as safe as the prescription drugs the drug company provides today.  The only difference is the price.

Last month, the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) added its endorsement to the number of other businesses, state governments, and everyday Americans who support the idea.  The president of NFIB, Dan Danner, noted that small businesses routinely pay 18 percent more in health insurance premiums than their larger counterparts.  He also cited a recent Wall Street Journal poll finding that 80 percent of Americans support this policy.  Private citizens and small business stand to gain so much in health care improvements if importation would become law.

All that remains is for Congress to vote and the government to act.  But remember that army of lobbyists the big drug companies have lying in wait in Washington.  For them, billions of dollars in our health care money is on the line.  For the rest of us, it’s our health.”