Is reimportation coming? It's looking good

4/26/04  Aberdeen News South Dakota

There may be light at the end of the tunnel for those bogged down in a financial mire by the high cost of prescription drugs.

Legislation is gathering steam in Congress to allow the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada and other countries. The legislation will also get the government involved in enforcing safety measures that opponents currently use to justify their stance against such re-importation.

Both houses of Congress have passed bills legalizing reimportation in the past, but bickering - sometimes used as a convenient excuse to prevent passage of legislation loved by voters but hated by lobbyists - prevented a new law from being made. This year the pressure is coming from the voters, not the lobbyists.

Ain't election years grand?

If the bill, which already has bi-partisan support in the Senate, is approved, perhaps it will cause a domino effect that might lead drug companies to rein in their spiralling costs that are crippling many senior citizens financially. It is true that some of those costs go toward research and development, as the drug companies claim, but the industry's high profit margins and lavish promotional campaigns contribute to the increases.

Canada, particularly, has cheaper drugs because of price controls placed by the government - a direction politicians in this country are loathe to take. Still, a trip over the Canadian border can mean hundreds of dollars in savings for Americans - who make the trip despite the illegality of such ventures.

South Dakota spends 20 percent of its health benefits budget on drugs. That's $10.5 million every year. It used to be just 5 percent. Earlier this year the state was approached by a Canadian pharmacy willing to provide drugs at a price that would have saved the state millions of dollars.

The federal legislation, sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, has other attractive features and would limit what could be imported and from where so that safety can be enforced.

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