“It’s good that two weeks before the election President Bush is finally
talking about prescription drugs, but given the scope of the problem, his
proposal is really very weak. Bush’s proposal will do nothing to remedy
the fact that U.S. consumers continue to pay - by far - the highest prices
in the world for prescription drugs. And he still has not come out for a
real Medicare prescription drug benefit - the proposal that he and
Congressional Republicans are supporting was written to please the drug
companies and provides no guaranteed coverage.
"Today’s announcement is very reminiscent of Bush’s presidential
campaign, where he touted the reimportation effort I was leading in
Congress. After the election, he backed away from this real solution under
pressure from the drug industry. To my mind, if the President is serious
about addressing the prescription drug crisis he should join me in
supporting reimportation, which would allow pharmacists and wholesalers to
reimport FDA safety-approved medicines from Canada and elsewhere where
they are sold for a fraction of the price U.S. consumers pay now. He
should also support a strong Medicare prescription drug benefit and
legislation that requires medicines developed at taxpayer expense to be
sold for a reasonable price.”
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