The panacea that is drug reimportation is finally getting its due. I’ve been wondering what the big hoopla is regarding “cheap” drugs from Canada and other foriegn nations. Sure, the Canadians and other countries use their monopolistic buying power to negotiate cheap prices from drug manufacturers, and some American consumers may be able to save significant dollars (barring a more significant decline of the US$) by piggybacking on those nations’ smart buying.
But on the whole, buying drugs from Canada is NOT an answer to the US drug cost inflation problem.
A just-published HHS study on the reimportation of drugs demonstrates that this “strategy” provides negligible savings.
Leaving aside the question of how a country that consumes 2% of the world’s pharmaceuticals can supply a nation that consumes over 50%, the real implication is clear – reimporting drugs is no solution. While it may be politically expedient, it is merely allowing US consumers to use the leverage of the Canadian government to buy drugs at a marginally lower cost.
Interestingly, the same US politicians that bought into the (at the time politically attractive) Medicare Drug bill also included provisions prohibiting the US government from negotiating with drug manufacturers. Thus, the politicians refused to allow the US government to employ the same “price lowering” tactics used by the Canadians, tactics that were delivering prices so attractive to voters that these politicians were in favor of allowing drug reimportation.
Have your cake, eat it too, and don’t get fat. Or in this case, please the big pharmas, protect the little guy, and thus preserve both campaign donations and votes. What a great country.
An excellent summary of the issues surrounding drug reimportation is provided by California HealthLine.
Dec
22
