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Doyle reaffirms
Canadian drug idea
4/15/2004
The Journal Times / Racine, Wisconsin
Governor Jim Doyle
told a federal task force on Wednesday that the federal government
should allow citizens to import prescription drugs from Canada,
and that it should allow states to do so, too. "I told them
about the success of the (state's) Web site, the over 70,000
hits that we've had on it, which just demonstrates the enormous
interest out there in lower prescription drugs, and how important
it is that we do something to put some real competition into
the marketplace here so that the drug companies cannot continue
to just impose skyrocketing costs on citizens of Wisconsin
and the United States," Doyle said. He spoke in a teleconference
with reporters shortly after delivering his testimony.
The lower costs of
imported Canadian drugs helps citizens and would help the
state if that were allowed, he said. "We spend about $700
million as a state on prescription drugs in our Medicaid program
and our institutional purchases and others." Buying 100 doses
of Celebrex, used to relieve the pain and inflammation of
arthritis, costs $171 now at the already discounted state
purchase rate, Doyle said, but that same quantity would cost
only $72 if purchased through a Canadian company. Such costs
point to a potential saving for the state of between $70 million
and $140 million with Canadian purchasing, he said."We have
found - and there have been a number of media reports - that
pretty dramatically show that just going from one pharmacy
to another in the same community you can save 10, 20, 30 percent."
Doyle said the state
won't start purchasing Canadian drugs. The law is clear on
that, he said. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said
reimportation of drugs is illegal, but Doyle said that's questionable
for individuals. Individual Internet purchases are no different,
Doyle said, from what people did previously.
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