The Wall Street Journal reports that the administration intends to allow importation of medicines in an effort to lower costs.

The aim is to allow companies to serve as intermediaries importing medicine for patients. Seeing health secretary Alex Azar promote this is like watching the US Trade Representative claim that the new NAFTA (USMCA) is actually a good trade deal. In other words it is completely unconvincing (see another WSJ article explain why this is so, here).

Part of the problem is that the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA, the rest of the administration, and much of Congress cannot be trusted on this topic. We have had a workable solution for patients affected by many high drug prices to import medicines safely for years. 

The main problem is that while the industry has
understandably opposed importation, the FDA — which is supposed to put patients
first — has refused to back this safety valve of personal importation. The
result is that the better-informed, often wealthier patients have taken
advantage of cheaper imports, while the less informed and under-insured — the
ones who most need cheaper medicines — are left in the dark.

State proposals of wholesale importation, in effect being copied by the administration, are more likely to undermine corporate profits as well as be at risk of substandard and counterfeit medicines because the companies likely to do the importation don’t have the track record of ensuring success (unlike Canadian and other OECD pharmacies doing personal importation). All in all this administration could hardly have messed this up any worse.

The post Importing drugs: The administration’s half-hearted effort will end in failure appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.