Earlier this year Carper voted with the Republicans to block an amendment to allow Medicaid and Medicare to negotiate drug prices. It caused quite a stir because Carper railed against the unfairness of hurting the profits of drug companies.
Carper is doing it again. Byron Dorgan has filed an amendment to allow drug reimportation from Canada. Carper has placed a hold on the amendment:
The White House, aided by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), is working hard to crush an amendment being pushed by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to allow for the reimportation of pharmaceutical drugs from Canada, Senate sources tell the Huffington Post.
As a result, the Senate health care debate has come to a standstill: Carper has placed a “hold” on Dorgan’s amendment and in response, Dorgan tells HuffPost, he’ll object to any other amendments being considered before he gets a vote on his.
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) is a lead co-sponsor of Dorgan’s amendment. She said she’s confident that, as of now, they have the votes they need. “I think that’s why we’re not having this vote,” she said, smiling. The amendment has the support of a number of other Republicans, including Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Charles Grassley (Iowa), John Thune (S.D.) and David Vitter (La.).
Drug reimportation is when the U.S. imports drugs from Canada. When we do this we get lower prices because of Canada’s nationalized health care system. Canada’s government negotiates with pharmaceutical companies on behalf of its citizens and because the Canadian government represents such a large group it can get lower prices for its drugs. When Medicare Part D was passed, it explicitly prevented Medicare from negotiating drug prices. In other words, the Republican-sponsored bill protected the pharmaceutical company practice of gouging American consumers.
I believe the amendment co-sponsors probably have good intentions but there are many ways for pharmaceutical companies to get around reimportation. The most obvious way is to only supply enough drugs for the Canadian population. Obviously the best way to lower our drug prices is to allow Medicare and the new public option to negotiate drug prices, but we live in bizzaro-world, where corporate profits must be maintained over the health and welfare of the American people.
Obviously, Carper is voting for the interests of the pharmaceutical companies and the administration is hoping the maintain the secret deal it never should have made with pharmaceutical companies. I have to add that the pharmaceutical companies are probably happy with the way the reform has played out. They are protected either way (status quo or reform) and they haven’t had to dirty their hands fighting the deal. The insurance industry and the Republican status-quo defenders (with big assists from confused teabaggers) have fought the reform and the pharmaceutical industry just has to sit back and watch and has managed to keep its hands clean. Not bad.