As a rallying cry, it may lack some of the fire of Patrick Henry's
famous 1775 speech on the supremacy of liberty, but it might just
serve to illustrate a point that is of great importance to many of our
nation's citizens today.
Prescription drugs are a large part of contemporary health care in the
United States, but the cost of pharmaceuticals greatly exceeds the
price of those same drugs in most other nations.
We're talking about vastly different prices for a prescription drug
that is marketed and sold in the United States and that same drug when
it is marketed and sold in Canada. Even when the drug was manufactured
here before being shipped across our northern border.
Such an arrangement might make good sense to the head of a
pharmaceutical company, but it is more than a little perplexing to
someone who is paying big bucks just to try to stay healthy here in
the United States. And it's baffling to those who make it their
business to take a good look at pharmaceutical price structures.
Locally, Springfield began a program several years ago that allowed
municipal employees and retirees to get cheaper prescription drugs by
allowing them to reimport medication from Canada. That program is
coming to an end with city workers being switched to state-run health
plans, but the city's program, which was the first of its kind in the
nation, ought to remain a model for the country as a whole.
The issue is about to come to the fore again with the seating of the
110th Congress just after the start of the year. We're fully expecting
to hear all the same tired arguments against allowing drugs across the
border from Canada, but they won't make any more sense this time
around. Prescription drugs from Canada are not in any way unsafe. And
they will not in any way aid terrorists. And barring them is not basic
economics.
In fact, it's quite the opposite: It is price fixing by another name.
And it's awfully expensive to American consumers.
Labels: No Prescription, Online Pharmacy, Prescription Drugs
