Gutknecht visits seniors to talk about liberalizing drug importation
Or: If you can't bring about the big solution, make political hay with the small one
At one point in the question-and-answer period a woman spoke up that she had a relative who worked for a drug company. "They call him a drug rep," she said, "but he's not really. He's a golf pro. All he does is go from one golf course to another setting up matches. That's what he does."
by Leigh Pomeroy
Rep. Gil Gutknecht (MN-01) visited with a dozen or so seniors at Old Main Village in Mankato on Monday. His theme was one he's been carrying for the last few years: Legalize the importation of prescription medications from approved foreign pharmacies.
To prove his point he introduced a Madison Lake citizen, Maurice Hardie, who recently had a shipment of Lipitor from Canada confiscated by the Customs Department, a division of Homeland Security.
It's an advocacy that's hard to argue against. As Gutknecht admitted, all other major industrialized countries in the world in some way negotiate lower prices from the major drug companies for their citizens. That's why prescription drug prices can be as much as 60% lower in Canada, the U.K., Germany or France than in the U.S.
Even in the U.S., various parts of the federal government negotiate with drug manufacturers for lower prices for their constituencies — for example, the Veterans Administration, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (which includes members of Congress), and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
That's right. Federal prisoners get their medications for less than what ordinary, upstanding, law-abiding citizens pay.
The solution, of course, is to give the federal government the wide-ranging power to negotiate lower drug prices for all citizens, just as other countries we compete with do. Actually, some members of Congress tried to do this, at least for Medicare enrollees' drug purchases, in the run-up to the passage of the Medicare Part D legislation. To his credit, Rep. Gutknecht was one. But the majority of the Republican side of Congress succumbed to the pressure of Big Pharma, and the final Medicare "reform" legislation passed with language prohibiting the federal government from negotiating lower prices.
Talk about government working against the interests of the people it theoretically represents.
Big Pharma argues that negotiated prices would inhibit research and development, and interfere with the "free market." Yet, as a pharmacist in the audience of the Gutknecht presentation pointed out, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), universities, medical centers (including the Mayo Clinic), state governments, and other public and private foundations fund and perform the majority of pharmaceutical research.
And, of course, there is no "free market" on patented medicine, since giving a patent is guaranteeing a monopoly on a product for a specified period of time.
The pharmacist in the audience noted that negotiation already works for nonprescription medications, pointing out that hospital groups bid on bulk purchases. She cited as an example the Nitro-Dur patch for smoking cessation, which can cost hospitals as little as 1¢ each and sell for $8-9 each. The same patches cost $60-80 apiece in local pharmacies.
The pharmacist also noted that some of the foreign pharmacies that Americans currently purchase from had very slipshod practices, according to a 2003 report by the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy. Gutknecht said that he wasn't advocating that just citizens be able to buy from foreign pharmacies, but that Minnesota pharmacies should also be able to buy directly from foreign sources.
Gutknecht admitted that the solution to the high cost of prescription drugs is not just to allow legalized importation, but that setting up "parallel markets," as he calls it, is a step toward a better system. What he implied but didn't come right out and say was that the U.S. should adopt a method similar to what our international competitors use, which would mean allowing all Americans to purchase prescription drugs through a plan that is able to negotiate lower prices with drug manufacturers.
It is ironic that congressmen get the same great deals on prescription medications as federal prisoners. But it is more than ironic — in fact, it is criminal — that both get a significantly better deal than most Americans. This is an example of why Congress today is broken, and no stopgap measure by Congress, like making it easier to import drugs from other countries, is going to fix a fundamentally flawed system.
For more discussion on this issue and Gutknecht's visit, see the Mankato Free Press and KEYC-TV for news stories, and Bluestem Prairie and Minnesota Central for commentary.
At one point in the question-and-answer period a woman spoke up that she had a relative who worked for a drug company. "They call him a drug rep," she said, "but he's not really. He's a golf pro. All he does is go from one golf course to another setting up matches. That's what he does."
by Leigh Pomeroy
Rep. Gil Gutknecht (MN-01) visited with a dozen or so seniors at Old Main Village in Mankato on Monday. His theme was one he's been carrying for the last few years: Legalize the importation of prescription medications from approved foreign pharmacies.
To prove his point he introduced a Madison Lake citizen, Maurice Hardie, who recently had a shipment of Lipitor from Canada confiscated by the Customs Department, a division of Homeland Security.
It's an advocacy that's hard to argue against. As Gutknecht admitted, all other major industrialized countries in the world in some way negotiate lower prices from the major drug companies for their citizens. That's why prescription drug prices can be as much as 60% lower in Canada, the U.K., Germany or France than in the U.S.
Even in the U.S., various parts of the federal government negotiate with drug manufacturers for lower prices for their constituencies — for example, the Veterans Administration, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (which includes members of Congress), and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
That's right. Federal prisoners get their medications for less than what ordinary, upstanding, law-abiding citizens pay.
The solution, of course, is to give the federal government the wide-ranging power to negotiate lower drug prices for all citizens, just as other countries we compete with do. Actually, some members of Congress tried to do this, at least for Medicare enrollees' drug purchases, in the run-up to the passage of the Medicare Part D legislation. To his credit, Rep. Gutknecht was one. But the majority of the Republican side of Congress succumbed to the pressure of Big Pharma, and the final Medicare "reform" legislation passed with language prohibiting the federal government from negotiating lower prices.
Talk about government working against the interests of the people it theoretically represents.
Big Pharma argues that negotiated prices would inhibit research and development, and interfere with the "free market." Yet, as a pharmacist in the audience of the Gutknecht presentation pointed out, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), universities, medical centers (including the Mayo Clinic), state governments, and other public and private foundations fund and perform the majority of pharmaceutical research.
And, of course, there is no "free market" on patented medicine, since giving a patent is guaranteeing a monopoly on a product for a specified period of time.
The pharmacist in the audience noted that negotiation already works for nonprescription medications, pointing out that hospital groups bid on bulk purchases. She cited as an example the Nitro-Dur patch for smoking cessation, which can cost hospitals as little as 1¢ each and sell for $8-9 each. The same patches cost $60-80 apiece in local pharmacies.
The pharmacist also noted that some of the foreign pharmacies that Americans currently purchase from had very slipshod practices, according to a 2003 report by the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy. Gutknecht said that he wasn't advocating that just citizens be able to buy from foreign pharmacies, but that Minnesota pharmacies should also be able to buy directly from foreign sources.
Gutknecht admitted that the solution to the high cost of prescription drugs is not just to allow legalized importation, but that setting up "parallel markets," as he calls it, is a step toward a better system. What he implied but didn't come right out and say was that the U.S. should adopt a method similar to what our international competitors use, which would mean allowing all Americans to purchase prescription drugs through a plan that is able to negotiate lower prices with drug manufacturers.
It is ironic that congressmen get the same great deals on prescription medications as federal prisoners. But it is more than ironic — in fact, it is criminal — that both get a significantly better deal than most Americans. This is an example of why Congress today is broken, and no stopgap measure by Congress, like making it easier to import drugs from other countries, is going to fix a fundamentally flawed system.
For more discussion on this issue and Gutknecht's visit, see the Mankato Free Press and KEYC-TV for news stories, and Bluestem Prairie and Minnesota Central for commentary.
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