Editor’s note: This commentary is by Richard Davis, of Guilford, who is a columnist for the Brattleboro Reformer, where this piece was previously published.
It seems like a worthwhile effort. Why not pass laws that allow the importation of prescription drugs from foreign countries into the U.S.? Those kinds of laws, while well-intentioned, are like putting a Band-Aid on a gushing puncture wound to the carotid artery.
There has been a lot of talk and little significant action in recent years to lower the obscene prices of prescriptions drugs in this country. The talk has been helpful because more of the public has been educated about how the pharmaceutical industry is holding hostage millions of Americans who rely on their products.
You don’t need to remind diabetics who use insulin every day about how expensive it has become to treat their disease when they have to pay $600 or more a month to control an incurable disease.
If laws were passed to make insulin more affordable through importation, a lot of suffering and death could be prevented when you consider that the cost of a monthly supply of insulin that cost $600 in this country can be purchased for $60 in Canadian pharmacies.
But the solution to the drug pricing problem will only be delayed if we try to rely on other countries that have created more equitable drug pricing systems. The delay will begin to take on a degree of permanency when politicians are able to say they have lowered drug prices They will not have to bite the hand that feeds them.
The federal government has been MIA on the issue so states have tried to make some sort of effort to lower drug prices for their residents. Those efforts will not get to the root of the problem. In 2018, 28 states passed 45 pieces of legislation to try to control rising drug costs. It is a lot of effort to put into merely chipping away at a problem that must be solved at the national level.
Trump sees this issue as a winner for him because he can do something relatively simple and make himself look like a hero to the American people. But people who have functioning brains, should be able to see through his ploy to get more votes before the election.
Instead of working with Congress to force pharmaceutical manufacturers to come to the table to negotiate or working on passage of legislation to control drug prices, Trump and his allies are giving the drug industry a pass by heading into importation territory.
Keep in mind that, according to OpenSecrets.org, the pharmaceutical lobbies spent $283,441,144 in 2018 to make sure that lawmakers do their bidding. Money rules in Washington and that kind of money blocks the passage of legislation that would lower drug prices for Americans.
Knowing how duplicitous Trump and his allies are, I can imagine a conversation that Trump has been having with pharmaceutical industry power brokers as they massage his ego and tell him what a great job he is doing. Behind the scenes Trump is probably telling those people to ignore his public bashing of them because he will do things to preserve their profits at the immoral levels they are now at. Allowing importation of drugs gives Trump a chance to have it both ways.
Hopefully, some of the Democratic candidates for president will call him out on this effort and show how this is not a solution but an action that will allow unrestrained drug company profiteering to continue. They need to point out to the American public that the importation effort makes it clear that Trump has no principles when it comes to trade with other countries. If importation is used as a tool to lower prices it is possible that the U.S. will face the high tariffs that Trump has imposed on other countries. His ridiculous tariff actions will come back to bite him, hopefully, before the election.
