Senate Rejects Plan To Reimport Drugs
29 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // December 15th, 2009 // 8:35 pm
The vote on the amendment was 51-48 in favor, but 60 votes were needed to prevail under a special rule, the Associated Press reports. President Obama supported the measure as a senator, but his administration echoed safety concerns raised by the pharmaceutical industry, which is supporting the Democrats’ health care bill. And now that bill may have a better chance of passage.
An angry Byron Dorgan, the North Dakota Democrat who introduced the measure, denounced a competing amendment that would permit imports if the FDA certifies it can be done without risks. “Do not vote for this amendment and say you’ve done something about the price of prescription drugs because constituents will know better,” Dorgan admonished his colleagues, according to the AP.
The alternative amendment by New Jersey’s Frank Lautenberg, also failed on a 56-43 vote. The House bill doesn’t address the issue. Dorgan’s plan would have allowed American pharmacies and drug wholesalers to import federally approved drugs from Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
Both drugmakers and the White House lobbied against the proposal, saying it would not protect people from dangerous or ineffective drugs. Dorgan’s plan would have cost pharma billions of dollars and had bipartisan support, the AP notes. A standoff complicated progress on health care reform.
Lautenberg’s New Jersey is home to many drugmakers and his proposal permits imports but requires the government certify imports will be safe — a guarantee Democrats and Republicans agree would be impossible to make, the AP writes. Last week, the FDA echoed those concerns.
Dorgan saw Lautenberg’s amendment as a way to lure away his supporters, according to the AP. The White House denies accusations the administration was opposing imports in order to keep industry support for health care reform. In June, the industry agreed to provide $80 billion in savings. The Congressional Budget Office estimated Dorgan’s plan would save the federal government $19 billion over the next decade. Dorgan says it would have saved four times as much.
harry
NAYs —48
Akaka (D-HI)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Burris (D-IL)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Cochran (R-MS)
Dodd (D-CT)
Durbin (D-IL)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagan (D-NC)
Hatch (R-UT)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Kaufman (D-DE)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kirk (D-MA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lugar (R-IN)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Schumer (D-NY)
Tester (D-MT)
Udall (D-CO)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Justice in MI
Thanks, Harry. Fascinating collection.
Hap
The problem is that Dorgan (and much of the Senate) wants Canada to do something about our drug costs. Particularly since if reimportation was approved, drug companies would likely simply lower their quotas to Canada, thus either imposing shortages on Canada or forcing pharmacies there to check ID and minimize sales to reimporters and non-Canadians, it doesn’t seem like a substantive solution to anything other than senators’ reelection prospects. Substantive limitations would, of course, have substantive consequences, and we’re not about dealing with those.
pharmavet
A deal is a deal. Pharma pledged $80 billion to help defray Medicare drug costs, Obama pledged no reimportation, and Senate ratified it. Democracy in action.
shytown
This is a backroom deal that benefits no-one, and I mean NO-ONE, but the pharma industry.
I worked in the industry for 15 years and this was the biggest inside joke pulled on the American public since Mr. Ponzi was around in the early 20th century. These drugs are made at the same facilities all across the world. They are the same meds, just going to different countries with different price tags.
It defies every known economic principle that the largest purchurser of anything, should negotiate the largest discount. Here in the U.S., it is totally reversed. We buy the most, AND WE PAY THE MOST. In Europe, they pay 40% less for the exact drugs that you and I get. Why? Because the lobbyists own our Senate, bought and paid for, just in time for Christmas.
Congrats Big Pharma, while you continue to gouge the American people, you better enjoy it.
Because Karma has a way of making it’s way back around.
And Congrats to our Senate, YOU SOLD OUT YET AGAIN TO CORPORATE INTERESTS.
CHANGE MY AS#! I guess some things will NEVER change. MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Big Pharma Watch
Unfortunately, more of the same! Problem is that the top executives of Big Pharma will get richer and richer while their costs will be cut everywhere, including the livlihood of thousands of employees.
pharmavet
Shytown, I can tell you of two people who will benefit from the $80 billion Pharma pledge. My parents. They are of Medicare age, use some fairly expensive drugs, and, being in the biz myself, I’ve modeled the cost projections wherein this money will fill about 20% of the donut hole that they would otherwise have to fill themselves. I would guess that the 15 years you spent in the industry that you now bash were not spent in the finance dept.
Betsy
Big Pharma outsources the manufacturing of many of their drugs then insists that we not allowed their re-importation. This angers me so that I cannot go into details about this. It’s just typical Big Pharma behavior.
And please do not be impressed with the $80 billion Big Pharma pledge. This is simply a PR effort to make them look good, and it will net them mega billions more. Big Pharma NEVER spends money unless it will be hugely profitable. And our stupid elected officials aren’t well enough informed to know anything about this kind of behavior, and they are consequently screwing the citizens of this country in very big ways.
Shytown seems to know all about this.
Evelyn Pringle
I wish I had the time to go back and gather all the remarks by Democrats brandishing Republicans for banning reimportation when the Medicare Prescription Drug bill was passed in 2003.
We’ve been had. Health Care Reform is a total sham.
Just watch how many members of Congress and Obama administration officials leave office for high paying jobs with the pharmaceutical industry as soon as the dust settles.
Justice in MI
I find myself agreeing most with Hap (as I understand him).
Reimportation is itself sham reform as far as anything that will yield genuine, affordable healthcare to all Americans. Regarding the real issue of drug prices, it is a distraction. If that is what it takes to enable some people a greater degree of access, then we have _really_ been had.
Evelyn–as a life-long Democrat, how do you explain to yourself why so many Republicans supported Dorgan’s plan?
Common Sense
Everyone wants something for nothing. But Dorgan’s amendment wouldn’t give Americans access to lower cost drugs for free. Instead it would simply remove all incentive for private industry (i.e. Big Pharma) to develop and market new drugs.
Drug discovery is a high-risk,high-reward investment of time and money. If you remove the high-reward part of the equation, then nobody will make the investment. The sad reality of the current system is that Americans subsidize the cost of drugs for the rest of the world. But Dorgan’s amendment wouldn’t change that. It would simply “import” the price regulation of whatever country was cheapest for a given drug.
If price controls are what Dorgan and the other senators think are the best approach to bringing down drug prices, they should just say that and establish them.
The end result of drug reimportation would likely be a loss of innovation, a dramatic halt to new drug development, significant job loss in the US and an increase in risk for American consumers. So we wouldn’t get something for nothing after all.
Anonymous_
Common sense- been to New Jersey lately? Connecticut? There is already a significant job loss to American consumers with pharma outsourcing and offshoring– and they are doing that with all the profits in the world coming from here? Pharma is moving to Asia both R&D and manufacturing — i.e. a price control country.
The reality is that no matter how much we pay for drugs it does not guarantee either a) jobs which are already gone or b) innovation.
The innovation argument is really old considering it is used for everything pharma doesn’t like.
harpy
Pfft - like Big Pharma is innovating anyway. Their idea of innovation is buying up smaller companies that are making innovations. And I really don’t buy the argument that they’ll just stop making drugs. So what? Someone else will. Isn’t that what capitalism is all about? See a need and fill it and make a lot of money?
Justice in MI
“The innovation argument is really old considering it is used for everything pharma doesn’t like.”
Indeed. It was used against FDA in ‘37. It was used against Kefauver-Harris. It was used by Gingrich et. al. when there was the attempt to dissolve FDA in ‘95. It continues to be used by preemption lobby every second sentence.
As far as I’ve been able to determine, there is no data whatsoever that supports it.
pharmavet
Innovation does not get stifled by offshoring. The reality is that it is all part of cost-efficient global pharmaceutical development. For example, one Big Pharma company is in the process of laying off teams of American BS and MS bench scientists, basically retaining a core of PhD’s to manage operations. The American PhD’s communicate with the actual bench scientists in China and other countries, directing their operations and getting feedback. Reason is simple. The “offshore” scientists earn considerably less than their American counterparts. Legally speaking, American companies can no longer get away with importing H1B Visa scientists and pay them less. I have mixed feelings about this. Given all of the worthless strategy meetings I’ve attended over the years, maybe things will be done more efficiently by internet and videoconferencing.
shytown
Dear Pharmavet,
I also have med issues with my son who was born with a birth defect that requires meds that cost quite a bit. So I understand your point. However, please allow me to point out a few things:
First, this ‘donut hole’ you speak of was created by pharma, backed by Bush, and pushed through as Med Part D. So it is pharma that created that expense to begin with under the guise that “Look, we(big pharma) care!” In reality the price concessions that pharma gave up were easily surpassed with frequent price increases and the inability for the U.S. to negotiate as one buyer. Instead, thanks to Bush, pharma was able to keep prices here in the U.S. 40% higher than other developed countries. I am not in finance as you suggested, but it seems to me a $1500-$2500 ‘donut hole’ concession for our elderly population by comparison a 40% across the board discount for ALL AMERICANS, JUST DOESN’T ADD UP!
Second, in regards to your arguement that R & D will go by the waste side if Big Pharma isn’t allowed to gouge us here in the U.S. anymore, I say BULLSHI#! Big Pharma will always spend money on R & D, because that is the business that they are in. Without money in R & D patents will eventually run out and the company would die. Trust me, Big Pharma has no intentions of that. By the simple nature of the industry, money will always be spent on R & D.
Finally, in response to the arguement that the U.S. won’t get first access to ‘life-saving’ newly discovered drugs is COMPLETE B.S.
We are the largest consumer of medication in the world. Do you really think if a company discovered a novel medicine that it would wait to bring it to the biggest AND most profitable market in the world?
If you believe that, then I have some swamp land here in Shytown for sale. It’s about as good a value as your “donut-hole” concession!
One last mention, I was a rep in the field for all those years, trust me when I say the American public has been part of the largest scam ever conducted on U.S. soil. The likes of which rivals Bernie Madoff. Wake the f%$# up people!, oh, and Merry Christmas.
Atlex
Shytown,
Not having time to respond to all of your points, I would like to point out that [prior to Medicare Part D, there was not donut hole, because there was no donut. The vast majority of those people who are impacted by the donut hole, had no coverage before and either paid cash or went without. All in all, the Part D benefit saved these folks a substantial amount of money.
Atlex
pharmavet
Thanks, Shytown for responding to my points. Extra credit for responding to the points that I didn’t even make. An extra helping of pudding for you on XMAS. Thanks, Atlex for the donut argument.
harry
I am looking at the nay votes, I posted, so I won’t forget them. I think the vote is quite interesting and perhaps the first indication of where the pharma dollars are going I have seen anyways. Kerry, Demo from MA, is interested in climate change, he may need obama’s support for this issue (a different and perhaps more important world stage, global discussion-to kerry ?).
SO much for the north east.
NJ (lautenberg, menendez), NY (schumer , and Gillibrand, the upcoming star democrat?), Boston, NC, PA all support big pharma and the KOLs, ghostwriting, IVY league doctors basically scamming the public on the safety of drugs. Not surprising as pharma resides in these states, which is a fair point. These politicians must recieve money/support from GSK, Pfizer etc.
what about CA, though, a state with biotechs, and questionable pharmaceutical practices, Stanford stands up there with harvard and columbia in terms of corrupt research doctors and dollars from pharma?
Feinstein, Boxer voted Yea! Yea.
Justice in MI
Harry–If you want to find out who gets campaign contributions from an industry, go to opensecrets.org You can look up any Senator or Rep for whatever election cycle. Of course, this will not include whatever other considerations may be involved.
Here, in Michigan, the Dem Senators split–Levin voting against the bill and Stabenow voting for it. Both get very large contributions from BC/BS. Neither gets much (relatively speaking) from pharma.
That said, if you look at the top 20 Senatorial recipients of pharma contributions over the past six years (to cover Senatorial election cycles), there does appear to be something resembling a correlation. This is hardly surprising, but there it is.
atlex
JiM,
Of course, as you are aware, correlation doesn’t mean causation. In a “chicken or egg” argument, I suggest that those 20 senators you refer to probably carried the same opinion on importation before they were elected. Pharma is very good at choosing which candidates to support and which to continue to support. While most people tend to believe that campaign donations are designed to influence a politician after the election. More often than not, they are to help elect or re-elect a politician who already maintains a certain position on an issue.
Atlex
Former Pharma Marketing Director
Thanks for the point Altex.
However, if I was looking around to find some extra money for my lab (if I were a doctor, and under pressure to keep up with the “jones”)or if I were a Senator and needing money for the war chest, I would be looking around for someone who seems to be “flashing the cash” and start to consider their views; after all, who can resist a quick buck?
So Pharma backs people who just “happen” to be thinking like minded with Pharma? Or is it the other way around - Chicken and the egg in deed.
Oh what a wicked web we weave…..
Jaynesday
Atlex,
Considering your theory - ultimately the money goes to those that are like minded. Insuring that the mind and will of pharma prevails. Those that disagree die on the vine.
One way of looking at it is that lobbying is basically the use of the power of money to counteract the general public’s votes.
Looking at it from the point of view of freedom of speech which is the justification for lobbying - one side has a megaphone and the other speaks in a whisper.
Atlex
Former,
What you don’t seem to get is that politicians who are “flexible” enough to move to either side of an issue depending on who gives the most to their campaigns are notoriously unreliable since they can just as easily move in a negative direction if the money flows differently. The most reliable means of influencing the debate is to help elect and keep in office those that agree with you, either in philosophy (eg, those with more pro-business stances) or for parochial reasons (eg, congressmen from NJ).
Also, though it is tangential to this discussion, I’ve noticed that the donations tied to pharma have become more diverse. Interestingly, sales forces tend to donate to conservatives, scientists/PhDs to liberals, and home office staff to both, often depending on the location of the home office (eg, Lilly’s HQ staff tends to be more conservative than Pfizer’s). Pharma PAC money is more strategic, targeting very specifically those candidates who align with pharma’s view, balancing this with the political realities.
Atlex
shytown
I remember when the Republicans were in charge.
80% of the money went to them.
Now that the Dems are in, looks to me that things have reversed.
So I am not sure I agree with the “Like-Minded”
theory of how and where Pharma’s PAC money goes.
From my earlier post, I am not bashing Med Part D. I think it was a step in the right direction. However, having launched and sold a very popular drug, I witnessed 2 dozen price increases within 3-4 years. The price at launch was 150% cheaper than what the drug was priced 3-4 years later, at it’s Rx peak. So yes, maybe mom and dad saved a little on the short end, but the American tax payer payed bigtime on the other end. That is the only point I was trying to make.
Please, let’s get one thing straight, Pharma is against reimportation because it will cost them BILLIONS a year in revenue. That is why they are against it - Not for Safety issues as they keep claiming.
If these reimported drugs are so unsafe, then let’s hire an independent lab to randomly order drugs across the spectrum and run tests to see if the drugs are dangerous. The reason you will never see this is because they already know what the results will be. They will find that they are the same as the drugs that are delivered here, just with different lot numbers and maybe P.I.’s depending on the labeling regulations of that particular country.
I said it before and I will say it again, Congrats Big Pharma, Mr. Ponzi would be proud!
And to my elected officials, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!
Shame on me, I guess. I thought this time would really be different.
To Pharmavet, sorry I got on my soap box at you, you did not make all those points. Hey, but thanks for the extra pudding. I love pudding! Merry Christmas.
Justice in Michigan
Yes, we all know the correlation/causation distinction.
Based on the votes and my own knowledge of earlier positions, I’m surprised at the number of pols who were _not_ consistent with their own earlier views. That, too, could have more than one explanation (changing opinion, Hamburg’s letter, push from Administration, anything to pass a bill, etc..).
Anyway, as conveyed through several posts, one can be for or against reimportation for a wide range of political and policy reasons–some of which concur with industry views (as represented by PhRMA) and some of which are anything but.
roger
Part time work work is very good
roger
Anyway, as conveyed through several posts, one can be for or against reimportation for a wide range of political and policy reasons–some of which concur with industry views (as represented by PhRMA) and some of which are anything but
http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com
henrylow
There’s a movement to radically change California government, by getting rid of career politicians and chopping their salaries in half. A group known as Citizens for California Reform wants to make the California legislature a part time time job, just like it was until 1966.
http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com