How often do residents of the upper Pioneer Valley wistfully wish they could join Vermont, with which they have so much in common?
And now it is prescription drug prices that have some gazing northward, although perhaps we should be looking farther south — to Washington, D.C.
The rising cost of prescription drugs in our country seems relentless. If you need those prescriptions, they can drain your pocketbook. But does it have to be that way?
Lawmakers in more than two-thirds of the states are considering ways to reduce prescription drug costs, including importing them from Canada, as Vermont is proposing.
A total of 87 bills in 34 states of all political stripes seek to save money on prescription drugs in various ways, according to the nonpartisan National Academy for State Health Policy.
Six of those states are considering bills that would allow drugs to be imported from Canada, where they cost an average 30 percent less than in the United States.
One state is liberal Vermont, where lawmakers have revived a nearly two-decade old proposal. Conservative Utah is considering a similar proposal. Maybe Massachusetts should join in.
It seems doing something to allow individuals and state governments to access cheaper drugs isn’t a partisan issue. Red and blue states pay for drugs through programs such as state employee health insurance plans and Medicaid for the poor, and they all have to balance budgets.
Federal law since 2003 has allowed the U.S. health secretary to permit states to import drugs, but such permission has never been granted, apparently because no Department of Health and Human Services secretary wants to guarantee that imported medications pose no additional risk to public safety, as required by the law.
The drug-import legislation introduced by Vermont’s independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders last year drops that requirement. Instead, it sets up a regulatory system where Canadian pharmacies that purchase their supply from manufacturers inspected by the Food and Drug Administration would be licensed to sell to customers across the border.
The bill allows not only individuals but also drug wholesalers and pharmacies to buy from Canada.
The hope is that importing drugs can put downward pressure on domestic drug costs for all, according to Utah state Rep. Norm Thurston, a Republican who also introduced a drug-import bill in his state.
“It’s not a liberal-conservative thing,” he said. “It’s not a Democrat-Republican thing.”
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a trade group for drug makers, argues the proposals would threaten people’s health because quality could not be assured.
But the real threat related to prescription drugs is patients not taking their medication because they can’t afford it.
Allowing patients to buy medication from other countries with strict drug standards, like Canada, is an idea that has long been floated in Washington by lawmakers of both parties. Each time, it has been blocked by the powerful drug lobby.
It’s time to pass such federal legislation, like the Sanders bill, and for state governments to support import programs to ensure safety, like Vermont and Utah are doing.
In Vermont, a state Senate committee earlier this month approved a proposal to create a bulk-purchasing program that would import drugs from Canada, following strict safety guidelines, so they could be distributed by pharmacies at a fraction of their American price.
Even President Donald Trump has supported opening up imports, and in his State of the Union address called drug prices an “injustice” and promised action this year.
Finally, here’s something that liberals and conservatives, Democrats, Republicans and independents can agree on. So let’s do it.