Senate Committee Backs Drug Reimportation

The Senate Budget Committee voted 14-8 to approve an amendment to the Senate’s Fiscal 2005 budget resolution to allow for “the safe reimportation of FDA-approved prescription drugs” from Canada.

Five Republican senators supported the amendment, which was introduced by Sen. Deborah Stabenow (D-Mich.). Stabenow said that the amendment would save government-administered health programs more than $4.5 billion over five years, according to the Web site www.kaisernetwork.org on March 5.

According to the March 8 “Washington Health Policy Week in Review” of the Commonwealth Fund, political analyst Alec Vachon said, “I’m saying it’s at least even money now that a bill gets to the floor. If it gets to the floor, it will pass overwhelmingly. . . . ”

The action is significant because the House of Representatives had already passed legislation (HR 2427) on July 25 requiring the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to design and implement a system to grant individuals, pharmacists, and wholesalers in the United States access to FDA-approved drugs from FDA-approved facilities in Canada and other specified foreign countries.

That bill eliminated the requirement that the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) certify that imported or reimported drugs pose “no additional risk” to Americans. The last two HHS secretaries have refused to make that certification, thus making reimportation illegal.

HR 2427 became part of HR 1, the Medicare bill, and was dropped in negotiations with the Senate about the final Medicare act.

In a July 16 letter to Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, APA Medical Director James H. Scully Jr., M.D., urged the House to reject HR 2427 because of concerns about patient safety.

In another sign of movement toward reimportation, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson told members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS, Education, and Related Agencies that he could support reimportation from Canada “if Congress put strict conditions on the practice.”

The article “Activists: Budget Plan Would Cut $11 Billion From Medicaid” in the “Washington Health Policy Week in Review” is posted online at www.cmwf.org/programs/healthbeat12.asp. ▪