Affordable & Safe Prescription Drug Importation Act Introduced to Help Lower Skyrocketing Cost of

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Source: Bernie Sanders US Senator for Vermont

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 – Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Bob Casey (D-Penn.) introduced legislation Tuesday to lower the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs by allowing Americans to import safe, low-cost medicine from Canada. Reps. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) and Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) introduced a companion bill in the House.

Both measures would authorize the secretary of Health and Human Services in two years to allow importation from other advanced countries.

In Canada and other major countries, the same medications, manufactured by the same companies, in the same factories are available for a fraction of the price compared to the United States. In 2014, Americans spent $1,112 per person on prescription drugs while Canadians spent $772 and Danes spent $325.

While five major drug manufacturers made more than $50 billion in profits in 2015, nearly 1 in 5 American adults could not afford the medicine they were prescribed. more

Read more: https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/affordable-and-safe-prescription-drug-importation-act-introduced-to-help-lower-skyrocketing-cost-of-medicine

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YAY Bernie and Dems who are co-sponsoring (lots!). Now let's see if the repugs sign on or if they want us to keep paying double and triple what other nations pay for meds in order to "balance the budget."

[flying_wahini]

1. Of course the Repugs will shoot it down and then pretend they didn't

I mean, I would LOVE it if they managed to do it. But doubt the Repugs (lobbyists)
will let it happen.

[louis-t]

2. Sorry, under repugs, HHS will be gone by the end of the year.

Repugs are evil.

[yallerdawg]

3. My wife gets hydrocodone for chronic pain for $1.20 a month on Medicaid.

It's $130 without Medicaid.

These assholes in Congress could fix it right here, right now - but it ain't gonna happen.

[DK504]

10. Damn I pay $4 on Medicare.

[yallerdawg]

12. She gets 13 more prescriptions filled.

Are you in the donut hole?

Maybe my wife gets a bulk discount price?

"Better living through pharmaceuticals."

[murielm99]

4. Hooray for those three men!

Let this be well publicized. Let it be even more publicized when the repubbies refuse to sign on or to hear the legislation.

[Honeycombe8]

5. They need to introduce this for a vote over 40 times, like Repugs would do. nt

[JudyM]

6. Good, they're running it as a team effort in both houses. This is a great bright line issue for

voters in '18. Exactly the kind of headline we need, showing who the "us" is in the repukes' version of "us vs them."

[JudyM]

7. This is great: outright challenged tRump to endorse it in his speech tonight.

“I say to President Trump: Talk is cheap. If you really have the guts to take on the pharmaceutical industry, tell your Republican friends in the House and the Senate to pass this legislation. Do it tonight in your address to Congress. Or admit to the American people that you were lying to them during the campaign.”

[OnlinePoker]

8. I'm sorry, but as a Canadian, this is bullshit.

Right now, 1 in 10 Canadians already have a difficult time paying for prescriptions and often leave them unfilled. We do not have a national pharmacare plan. Many drugs are often in short supply (my wife sometimes has to wait up to 3 weeks for her vision care prescription to be filled). The drug companies will send the drugs where they get the most money, which would be across the border, leaving Canadians in an even more precarious position and facing higher costs for the drugs that remain. Fix your own house, but don't wreck ours to do it.

[secondwind]

9. YUGE K&R!!!!!!

[DK504]

11. The Rethugs will trot out the bullshit

lines about R&D and how they need to some how make their money back.

[joet67]

13. Glad to see this, but no doubt the Republicans will have no part of it.

Death panels have spoken.

[itcfish]

14. Aren't Generic Drugs

already imported from China and India with no labeling with country of origin?

[Kimchijeon]

15. anything to help... as doubtful as i am to this getting passed we have to try!