An amendment to the defense appropriations bill was gutted in conference this week. The Vitter amendment in its original form would have stopped US Customs from seizing all Rx drugs from crossing our northern border. This includes mail-order and internet prescribed drugs.
More on the flip....
Americans would be allowed to carry into the United States small quantities of prescription drugs they buy in Canada under a tentative deal approved by congressional negotiators.
A U.S. Senate-House of Representatives panel is set to meet on Monday to sign off on the deal reached this week inserting the drug language into a domestic security spending bill.
The U.S. pharmaceutical industry has staunchly opposed any loosening of bans against prescription drug imports, including from Canada, where medicines are often priced at up to 55 percent below American products.
A much more significant ban on Internet mail-order imports, which have raised concerns about counterfeit drugs, would remain in place.
"The language makes it clear the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) can't prevent people from driving into Canada" to bring back prescription drugs, said an aide to a Democratic senator.
But the aide added this was a "very, very minor step" because the government had mostly been ignoring such imports.
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Reuters story
here.
Yes, we pay 55% more than Canadians for Rx drugs.
What's even more stunning is that Republicans are framing this as a security issue!
U.S. border authorities, under the Homeland Security Department, began aggressively clamping down on the practice two years ago, using anti-terrorism laws to seize Lipitor, Tamiflu, Viagra and other prescription drugs purchased in Canada by Americans.
U.S. border authorities, under the Homeland Security Department, began aggressively clamping down on the practice two years ago, using anti-terrorism laws to seize Lipitor, Tamiflu, Viagra and other prescription drugs purchased in Canada by Americans.
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Many of Vitter's fellow Republicans saw the drug policy, part of a bill to fund Homeland Security in 2007, as about more than just dollars and cents.
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Many of Vitter's fellow Republicans saw the drug policy, part of a bill to fund Homeland Security in 2007, as about more than just dollars and cents.
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"There are a lot of us who believe that importation of drugs is a security issue -- it's an issue that is a threat to the health of Americans," Representative Eric Cantor, a Republican from Virginia, said on Wednesday.
There is some light at the end of the tunnel:
Senator David Vitter -- who proposed the drug policy and helped it get the Senate's approval in a 68-32 vote in July -- said he was pleased that the House of Representatives approved of the deal.
"This really breaks the dam and it shows that it's only a matter of time before we pass a full-blown reimportation bill," said Senator David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana.
The real solution to the problem is granting every American universal health care coverage. The US is the only country in the world that does not find a way to provide all of its citizens a government sponsored, universal health care. With 45+ million Americans without health care insurance, its a tragedy that the world's only superpower cannot afford to provide care to all.
The way we get from here-to-there is to slowly chip-away at the problem of health insurance in the U.S. We need a full drug-importation bill that allows Americans to order drugs from Canadian internet and mail-order pharmacies. We need Congress to grant Medicare/Medicaid authority to negotiate with Pharma lower drug prices. We then need a comprehensive bill similar to Massachusetts that mandates health care for all. Finally, we need a full blown act of Congress that grants federal guaranteed health insurance to all.
These are steps. They may take time. But this November, the Republicans want to "black bag" grandma and grandpa for wanting cheaper drugs to sustain their lives.