The last two years or so have seen tremendous efforts by individual states, including Illinois and Wisconsin, among many, to provide prescription drugs to their citizens at lower costs. For most of these states, the solution was to work with Canadian internet pharmacies and other Canadian suppliers. It looks like Canada is bowing to pressure from either the US Government or the pharmaceutical companies. Canada's Health Minister is strongly considering shutting down sales from Canadian internet pharmacies to U.S. (and possibly other countries) buyers.
This is getting to be a really sticky issue as states are struggling to purchase drugs for their citizens on Medicaid. Alabama has been taking drastic measures to keep its health care system from going completely bankrupt, and the state blames most of its financial woes on what it has been charged by the drug companies. The Attorney General for Alabama, Troy King, recently filed a lawsuit against 79 drug companies, stating,
"I bring this suit not because the prices of prescription drugs are high, but because the prices of prescription drugs have been intentionally and willfully manipulated by drug manufacturers. The actions of these companies have worked to the detriment of our state and, specifically, to those Alabamians who can least afford it-our seniors, our poor, and our children," King said.
Other attorney generals are said to be considering filing similar lawsuits.
Where would all this leave us? It's not likely that all pharmaceutical companies will suddenly drop their list prices by 50%, unless there is an extraordinary pressure from citizens, government and shareholders. Again, not likely. Will these actions possibly make pharma companies look more carefully at their pricing structures? Possibly. Will they discount Medicaid drugs and increase prices for non-Medicaid patients? Eh ... maybe, if the discount and increase are teeny (enough to make a difference over the whole buying body, but not enough to effect individuals terribly much).
It's a real quandary. People need the drugs, but they're getting too expensive. If the states just plain can't afford to buy them anymore, though, and stop doing so, the pharma companies lose a large segment of their sales, share price drops, mayhem ensues everywhere. I can't come up with the solution right now (other than to impose more fiscal responsibility on everyone involved), but would welcome any thoughts from folks about what they think might help. There was a good column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that addresses this issue, although it mainly just states that using Canadian drugs as the cure for our drug-cost problem is like using a bandaid on a near-amputed limb.
The column mentions the HHS Task Force on Drug Importation's study on the costs involved in importing our drugs from Canada. I haven't been able to slog through all 144 pages of this report yet, but one thing that is of note is that all of the members of the task force are from various parts of the government, so it's not too surprising that they came up with a conclusion that mirrors what the current White House policy is. While hearings were held with the public and various groups, there were no representatives on this task force. So the report is an interesting perspective, but is not immediately clean of any bias.
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