6/06/2009

Price controls imported on Prescription Drugs

You can look up this whole amendment here by plugging in S 1229. This law will mean that people will die because drug companies will not now develop those drugs.

SA 1229. Mr. DORGAN (for himself, Ms. SNOWE, Mr. MCCAIN, Ms. STABENOW, Mr. SANDERS, and Ms. KLOBUCHAR) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 1256, to protect the public health by providing the Food and Drug Administration with certain authority to regulate tobacco products, to amend title 5, United States Code, to make certain modifications in the Thrift Savings Plan, the Civil Service Retirement System, and the Federal Employees' Retirement System, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

DIVISION __--IMPORTATION OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS
SEC. 1. SHORT TITLE.

This division may be cited as the ``Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act of 2009''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress finds that--

(1) Americans unjustly pay up to 5 times more to fill their prescriptions than consumers in other countries;

(2) the United States is the largest market for pharmaceuticals in the world, yet American consumers pay the highest prices for brand pharmaceuticals in the world;

(3) a prescription drug is neither safe nor effective to an individual who cannot afford it;

(4) allowing and structuring the importation of prescription drugs to ensure access to safe and affordable drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration will provide a level of safety to American consumers that they do not currently enjoy;

(5) American spend more than $200,000,000,000 on prescription drugs every year;

(6) the Congressional Budget Office has found that the cost of prescription drugs are between 35 to 55 percent less in other highly-developed countries than in the United States; and

(7) promoting competitive market pricing would both contribute to health care savings

[Page: S5954]
and allow greater access to therapy, improving health and saving lives.
SEC. 3. REPEAL OF CERTAIN SECTION REGARDING IMPORTATION OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS.

Chapter VIII of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 381 et seq.) is amended by striking section 804.

SEC. 4. IMPORTATION OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS; WAIVER OF CERTAIN IMPORT RESTRICTIONS.

(a) In General.--Chapter VIII of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 381 et seq.), as amended by section 3, is further amended by inserting after section 803 the following:

``SEC. 804. COMMERCIAL AND PERSONAL IMPORTATION OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS.

``(a) Importation of Prescription Drugs.--

``(1) IN GENERAL.--In the case of qualifying drugs imported or offered for import into the United States from registered exporters or by registered importers--

``(A) the limitation on importation that is established in section 801(d)(1) is waived; and

``(B) the standards referred to in section 801(a) regarding admission of the drugs are subject to subsection (g) of this section (including with respect to qualifying drugs to which section 801(d)(1) does not apply). . . . .

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1 Comments:

Blogger Pundit said...

If price controls will cause more people to die because the drug companies won't develop new drugs, then please tell us how many people have died already due to price controls on pharmaceuticals throughout the rest of the world and how many drugs the pharmaceutical companies have refused to develop as a result of said controls.

The equation you have posited is very clear:

price controls = fewer drugs = more deaths.

Since price controls already exist, how many deaths have resulted?

6/08/2009 9:07 AM  

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