Rick Allen: “what the gentleman is really talking about is what we often call reimportation, and that is legislation which has been…”

“what the gentleman is really talking about is what we often call reimportation, and that is legislation which has been passed that would allow drugs to be reimported from Canada. Just to give an example, from a recent bus trip up in Maine where a group of seniors went over the border to Canada, got their prescriptions filled by a Canadian physicians, 25 people saved $1,600 in one bus trip. Just to give one example of a critical drug, Tamoxifen is a drug for breast cancer, and many women who are going through a fight against breast cancer do not need to be fighting for their pocketbooks as well. Tamoxifen in Maine costs $112-114 for a month's supply. In Canada, it is about $13. There is a 10-1 differential for Tamoxifen for fighting breast cancer. When we look at other countries, the prices are much lower elsewhere. Why? Because the governments in those countries do not allow their seniors to be taken advantage of. All of those governments one way or another set some kind of cap on what the pharmaceutical industry can pay. We have the anomaly here in the United States, Medicare, 39 million beneficiaries, the largest health care plan in the United States, they do not have prescription drug coverage, they do not have the Federal Government negotiating lower prices for them. They are on their own.”