Grassley: It Should Be Legal to Buy Cheaper Prescription Drugs From Other Countries
Grassley: It Should be Legal to Buy Cheaper Prescription Drugs from Other Countries Senator
Sponsors Bill to Ensure Safety of and Timely Access to Lower-priced Pharmaceuticals
Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Committee on Finance, today introduced a bill that would make it legal for U.S. consumers to buy safe prescription drugs from other countries. Grassley joined forces with other key senatorial advocates of safe importation to introduce the bipartisan legislation.
"I've always considered making it legal for Americans to import their prescription drugs a free-trade issue," Grassley said. "Imports create competition and keep domestic industry more responsive to consumers. In the United States, we import everything consumers want. So why not pharmaceuticals? Today, consumers in the United States pay 60 to 112 percent more for brand-name prescription drugs than consumers in other countries.
"If Americans could legally access prescription drugs outside the United States, then drug
companies would be forced to re-evaluate their pricing strategy. The pharmaceutical industry would
no longer be able to gouge American consumers by making them pay more than their fair share of
the high cost of research and development. With this new legislation, we're moving ahead together
to get the job done."
Grassley introduced his own legislation in the last Congress - the Reliable Entry for Medicines at Everyday Discounts through Importation with Effective Safeguards Act of 2004, or the REMEDIES Act. This time, he combined forces with importation legislation sponsors Sen. Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, and Sen. Olympia Snowe, Republican of Maine, and others including Sen. Ted Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, to introduce the Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act. House members are introducing a companion bill.
Grassley said the new, combined bill builds upon and improves last year's bills:
* It tears down the trade barriers that Congress put up in 1991.
* It provides legalized access to lower-priced drugs through importation.
* It addresses safety concerns by providing the Food and Drug Administration with the necessary resources and authority to implement a safe and effective program.
To make sure that drug makers don't interfere with legalized importation, the legislation includes non-discrimination provisions to be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission.
"We're working to make sure Americans have more affordable access to wonder drugs by opening the doors to competition in the global pharmaceutical industry," Grassley said. "Working together, we're committed to getting the job done."
Grassley has been a consistent supporter of importing prescription drugs from Canada. The first reimportation vote in the U.S. Senate occurred in July 2000, on an amendment offered by Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont. Grassley supported the Jeffords amendment. Grassley voted a second time for reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada in July 2002, on an amendment offered by Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota. Grassley voted for another Dorgan amendment when it was offered
in June 2003. This legislation became part of the Senate bill to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, but it was eliminated in the final conference report on the bill.
http://finance.senate.gov/press/Gpress/2005/prg020905a.pdf