MEDICARE:: Hill Negotiators Rethink Reimported Drugs

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> washingtonpost.com

>

> Hill Negotiators Rethink Reimported Drugs

> Whether to Allow Such Medication Is a Major Sticking Point on Medicare

Bill

>

> By Amy Goldstein and Helen Dewar

> Washington Post Staff Writers

> Thursday, November 6, 2003; Page A02

>

> House and Senate members negotiating a revision of Medicare are rethinking

> whether to include a politically sensitive provision that would allow

> Americans to buy cheaper prescription drugs from Canada or other

countries,

> according to sources familiar with the deliberations.

>

> Key House Republicans on the Medicare conference committee, the sources

> said, have suggested in recent days that Congress abandon the notion of

> permitting the " reimportation " of drugs -- many of them developed and

> patented in the United States -- from countries where the retail prices

are

> considerably lower. They have suggested that federal health officials, who

> have condemned the reimportation idea, examine whether it could work.

>

> The reimportation matter is one of several core disagreements remaining as

> the negotiators enter their final days of closed-door bargaining sessions

> to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the

> Medicare legislation. The prospect that they might reject drug reimports

> raises questions about whether a final Medicare agreement can pass the

> House, sources said.

>

> The issue proved vital when the House passed its Medicare bill in late

June

> by one vote. The bill was on the brink of defeat when Rep. Jo Ann Emerson

> (R-Mo.) switched her vote in exchange for a written promise by Speaker J.

> Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to schedule a vote on legislation that would give

> Americans of all ages more latitude to buy drugs from other countries --

> and to push for that during the negotiations with the Senate.

>

> A month later, the House voted 243 to 186 to let U.S. residents buy

> prescription medicine from Canada and two dozen other industrialized

> countries where drug prices are government-controlled. That measure is

more

> lenient than a reimportation provision in the Senate's Medicare bill,

which

> would allow medicine to be reimported only from Canada -- and only if the

> Food and Drug Administration concluded that the practice would be

> cost-effective and safe.

>

> " Coming up with an entirely new position short of either [the House or

> Senate approach] does not, in my opinion, reflect the will of the House by

> any stretch of the imagination, " Emerson said in an interview yesterday.

>

> Hastert spokesman John Feehery said the speaker has qualms about

> reimporting drugs on economic and safety grounds but is committed to a

> compromise. Asked whether the study would be an acceptable compromise,

> Feehery said, " If that's what the conferees come up with, I don't think

> he's going to be all that upset about it. "

>

> The sources said that some Senate negotiators are continuing to advocate

> the Senate's more restrictive approach but that the conference's leader --

> House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) -- has

> balked. Another conferee, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman

W.J.

> " Billy " Tauzin (R-La.), a vehement critic of reimporting drugs, has

> produced an outline questioning whether the final bill should omit any

> mention of the issue and how federal health officials could carry out such

> a study.

>

> " There is an active discussion, " a source said, " about whether anything

> should be done at all. "

>

> Meanwhile, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. John D. Dingell

> (D-Mich.), two longtime champions of Medicare, wrote President Bush urging

> him to " exert your leadership " to help assure a compromise that " will

> strike a bipartisan balance. "

>

> They pledged their cooperation in such an effort but made clear they would

> oppose any proposals that they regarded as threats to Medicare itself,

> including what they described as " excessive subsidies " to private health

> plans or changes that could drive up Medicare premiums.

>

> " No plan that undermines Medicare . . . deserves to be enacted, " they

said.

> " Ideological agendas and insistence on partisan proposals must not be

> allowed to make this a missed opportunity. "

>

> As Kennedy and Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) continued to

warn

> that prospects for an acceptable Medicare compromise are dimming, Sen.

John

> Breaux (D-La.) called a news conference to say the obituaries were

> premature. The legislation " is not dead. It's not on life support, " he

> said. " We can make it work. "

>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5926-2003Nov5.html?referrer=e

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