John Sarbanes: “In addition to precluding the Government from bringing its weight to bear in purchasing in order to lower the cost of…”

“In addition to precluding the Government from bringing its weight to bear in purchasing in order to lower the cost of drugs because they would be a very big purchaser and obviously they would have an impact, some have said: Well, let's at least allow for the reimportation of drugs from other countries, particularly Canada. Some of our people have been going to Canada in order to get their prescription drugs. They cross the border, and they can buy them at 40, 50, 60 percent less than they pay in this country. So there were provisions that passed to allow reimportation. Am I correct that, in effect, this bill eliminates that?”