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The Dorgan reimportation amendment has been debated for three days without a vote. Jeffrey Young reports for The Hill that the sticking point is that it might pass:
A deal between the White House and the pharmaceutical industry is holding up a bipartisan amendment to allow the importation of cheaper prescription drugs from abroad, according to a member of the Senate Democratic leadership [...]
Dorgan’s measure, which would permit bulk exports of medicines from countries such as Canada, enjoys broad and bipartisan support and likely has the backing of more than 60 senators, which would guarantee its adoption on the healthcare reform bill.
Tension between the White House and Democratic supporters of the so-called drug reimportation amendment is primarily behind the delay, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Thursday.
“There’s a political subtext here,” Durbin said. “It has to do with whether or not we can do as part of the impact on pharma in this bill and whether or not there are other things that are higher priorities.”
Basically, the deal between the White House and the pharmaceutical industry didn’t allow for any circumstance that would save consumers $106 billion over ten years by being able to purchase cheaper drugs. Some liberals have objected on the grounds that Republicans are making bad-faith arguments about the value of a single negotiator, but as a means to block drug customers from tens of billions in savings annually, it’s a weak argument. And it’s especially weak when the only reason it’s being held up, despite massive support, is that the White House doesn’t want to take a big bite out of Big PhRMa.
There are also several representatives of the pharmaceutical industry in the US Senate.
Democratic senators from states home to pharmaceutical companies, including Tom Carper (Del.), Frank Lautenberg (N.J.) and Robert Menendez (N.J.), object to the amendment, citing concerns about ensuring the safety of medicines entering the U.S. supply chain from foreign sources. Congress Daily has reported that Carper (D-Del.) placed a hold on the amendment, but his office refused to comment to The Hill.
The Dorgan amendment is co-sponsored by 19 senators, including Snowe and John McCain (R-Ariz.), who have been leading the floor debate. On Thursday evening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Lautenberg had offered an alternative to the Dorgan amendment; both amendments will come to a vote at the same time, Reid said.
What’s this Lautenberg amendment? It was introduced last night, it’s 100 pages long, and was probably written by PhRMa. With one hour’s notice, Harry Reid tried to drop it onto the floor for a vote. There is no language for it at Thomas. The LA Times reports that Lautenberg’s measure is a poison pill.
Democrats from states with major drug companies strongly oppose the amendment. One of them, Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), offered an alternative to address the safety concerns. (Note: there are no safety concerns. In fact, safety is strengthened by the Dorgan amendment -ed.)
In the past, supporters of easier importation have seen similar amendments as “poison pills” — effectively neutering the proposal by requiring U.S. officials to certify in advance that imported drugs would be safe and effective [...]
The resistance from his own party infuriated Dorgan, as did Lautenberg’s amendment. “It is an amendment designed to kill our effort to allow the reimportation of drugs and put the brakes on skyrocketing drug prices,” he said.
The White House issued formal statements saying that the president backs the concept of importation — but has concerns about its safety.
“The president supports reimportation of safe and effective drugs,” said White House spokeswoman Linda Douglass. “The Food and Drug Administration has raised safety concerns about the current proposal and will continue exploring policy options to create a pathway to importing safe and effective drugs.”
This is just horseshit, pardon my French. The safety issue is a red herring; in fact, the recent settlement of Vioxx and other drugs show that we have a safety issue NOW with the current system. Under reimportation, the exact same drugs bottled at the exact same factories will be allowed for sale in this country, with actually higher safety standards.
Even when you have 60 votes in the US Senate, you don’t have them – at least when a powerful industry wants to subvert your bill and the leadership agrees with them. The White House basically has to stop talking about cost control when they try to kill one of the quickest and simplest cost control measures out there.
Byron Dorgan has some power here, though. He could announce that the underlying bill would not have his support until his amendment, which has over 60 votes, passes. More on this in a bit.
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you know, I always said the democrats would corrupt themselves just like the republicans did
I have no idea how we are going to fix our government, the only thing I can think of is to make all contributions to politicians flat illegal
We need a credible third or fourth party. But the current system is rigged (i.e., debates, media, state electoral rules) for the two parties. And in order to attain leadership in one of the two parties, there are litmus tests.
The Dorgan amendment, unlike most amendments, is a matter of life or death for tens of thousands of Americans. For Pres Obama and some of the Dem senators to treat it so cavalierly, as if it is a pawn in a game, is something I am not going to forget. I, for one, am done with voting for the lesser of two evils, in 2010 and 2012.
Let me see if I have this right. One hundred twenty-two Americans die each day from lack of health care. Obama’s busy, and cannot interfere with the Senate.
One hundred twenty-two PhRMA execs bottom line is threatened, and Obama is all over it.
Well, just goes to prove that there are constituents and Constituents. I guess I know where I stand.
Embracing foreign imports is an American way of life.
Trade deficits have been out of whack for decades.
Every product sold at Wal-Mart is imported from a foreign country and all have some level of safety risks.
Nobody listens to “Buy American” slogans with other products, why should pharmaceuticals be any different?
Bring the prices down through imports!
why of course he does, but
the PO,MediCare Reimbursement Rates,re importation is “not an essential element” of reform, “just a sliver” doncha knowReal Campaign finance reform: take the average spenditure for a congressional or Senate seat from the last 5 election cycles, divide that number in half and make that the maximum amount that can be spent by any candidate for any seat. Make the local tv stations pony up some free air time for debates only. Add an adjustment for inflation for each election cycle.
This would then put the emphisis on the candidate and end the media dynamic of the front runner being the guy/gal with the most fund raising. Nothing irks me more than in an election year when the media tells us who the viable candidates are based solely on thier ability to raise money.
interesting perspective on something that has nothing to do with why trade deficits are bad in the first place, the reason is they export jobs in lieu of child/slave/unsafe work conditions
on the other hand, these are drugs produced in exactly the same places they would be produced if we didn’t import them so there is no job lost what so ever and possibly more jobs created
interesting you would finally find exporting our jobs something to complain about!
so what say you, how about a tariff on all imports from country’s that allow slave and child labor?
I wonder if we can agree on something
Taking out the money politics surely is the arching political event to achieve better politics for the bottom two thirds of Americans.
The corporations were created to circumvent natural law of birth and death and have become vessels of wealth carryover and influence that now infest WashingtonDC in most adverse of ways big and small.
It would be within reason to suggest we have returned to the era of the Robber Barons,Tammany Hall and the Hanna epoch.
Taking this out will be the high mountain to climb as the current regime in WashingtonDC of money politics,two party hegemon powered by K Street,Pentagon,CIA and corporatists will not submit easily or without a big pushback. Barack Obama is flying their flag to be sure. He is in the WH for next three years as it is.
Will be very hard to take the money politics out. But if not done we are no better at governance than what is found in lands where the likes of a Marcos,Suharto,Mobutu,Mugabe or Shinawatra run things for benefit of themselves or the gang they came into power with. Where common wealth being plundered for personal gain is the norm.
American healthcare is a disgrace as it is.
American capitalism has become the realm of funhouse mirrors.
American rule of law on matters of consequences for breaking the law too inconsequential. See Obama WH record on Wall Street brigands. Torture and torturers.Wiretaps and snooping on Americans. The Maher Arar matter.
American national politics is a disgrace while subject to money politics.
American national politics is a disgrace when someone like Dick Cheney is not brought to justice. When wars get started and never ended to benefit the Pentagon and CIA sub regimes and their corporate overlords.
Change can come on political terms and not too many get hurt.See FDRs New Deal.
Or change will come by other means. See American Civil War.
My sentiments exactly.
I agree in principle, but tariff may not be right, ban on products made using slave and child labor sounds better to me.
We don’t need to offer any justifications for the Senate to explain how they arrive at their decisions. They are seasoned pros and know that what they are doing will lead to a given result. So Reid’s unwillingness to proceed with a vote on Dorgan’s amendment because of Carper or Lautenberg or Menendez or WH deals is immaterial, what is material is that the amendment is not being voted upon.
As they say in the military, I’m not asking how to do it I’m telling you to do it.
This is just another instance that highlights the contemptuous nature of Obama, that much is true, but we already new that. It also highlights the complete ineffectiveness of Reid, but we knew that as well. What we are demanding is results. We are tired of hearing explanations.
The need to revamp the Senate becomes clearer by the day. We are more maddened by the minute. This is after all according to the adoring press and other acolytes the greatest deliberative body in the world. All evidence to the contrary. Obama is likewise an eminent statesman even if everything shows him to be a scumbag.
Is there no one to rid us of these meddlesome pests? Only ourselves it seems.
One other point on cost controls, which has probably been metioned here somewhere…3% profitability is a bullshit number. It’s fairly standard across many industries, including insurance.
However, the costs associated with denying care, stock market losses, teevee commercials and other ancilliary costs that are not providing any benefit to policy holders is probably a very large chunk on a percentage basis. We would need a detailed look at the income statement to see the magnitude of the wasted expense.
All else equal, if you eliminate those costs the profitability would increase a linear amount and look quite gaudy, I’m sure.
T-
we’re on the same page however if you tariff the comenserate differance plus some diriviitve for those labor costs the producer is induced into voluntarily raising the conditions of his work force
I see, I was thinking giving them the stick – ban the product to end the pratice, rather than the carrot – tariff, add costs but entice them to change their ways.
Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle! We should be able to purchase Rx medication made and packaged here for less money than anyone in a foreign country would pay. Instead, for some greedy brain-dead reason, it would be cheaper to buy here if we export it to Canada and then import it back into the US.
His majesty, the esteemed naked-as-a-jaybird obamanable Obama, wants to “protect” a God Damn Greedy Corporation’s bottom line at the expense of sick people, so he decrees we can’t do that. And even though the Democrats have enough votes to reject his heartless authority, they won’t do it.
I so despise Obama and the Democrats.
Senator Dorgan should then propose either revoking the U.S. government’s subsidies and tax breaks that facilitate many of our drugs being manufactured with third world wages in Puerto Rico and “imported” into the U.S., or simply adopt Canadian or European drug purchase laws that make them more affordable there for starters.
what I always note is that there’s a difference between a 3% profit margin on selling candy and a 3% profit margin on 16% of the US economy.
If an isurance company charges your family $10,000 a year, the profit is $300 to shareholders, and $3,000 to administration (cleaning the computer keyboard). The customers are mostly supplied by big business, which sends everything formatted directly to insurance data files.
There is little actual work involved, except in the offices of hospitals, doctors, etc., who polish the information and are the ones really handling the claims. – fwdpost.com
Great sleuthing dday, and great reporting by Jeffrey Young at The Hill and by Janet Hook and Tom Hamburger at the Los Angeles Times.
A few points that Byron Dorgan made on the floor about our current prescription drug market:
40% of the active ingredients in the domestic prescription drug market today come from India or China.
Americans pay 10 times as much for Nexium, and 3 times as much for Lipitor as the British.
One of the well-known prescription drugs (of a U.S. corporation) is made in Ireland, and the same product goes into two sorts of bottles, identical except that one group of bottles is red-labeled and the other blue-labeled. One label color goes to the U.S. at much higher cost, the other label color goes to a country or countries with much lower cost for that particular prescription drug product.
European countries have been safely reimporting prescription drugs for 20 years.
Dorgan’s amendment, as indicated in the post, increases oversight and regulation of the existing domestic drug market, which otherwise will remain in its present poor state of quality-control.