Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

HELP will 'do something,' senator promises.

Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) said April 19 that his Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee would move forward on legislation allowing the importation of less-expensive prescription drugs into the United States without the manufacturer's consent.

"We will do something on drug importation," Enzi said at a HELP hearing on S 334 importation legislation.

Enzi has made no secret of his fears that allowing drug importation could expose Americans to counterfeit drugs and jeopardize pharmaceutical innovation by essentially importing foreign price controls. But he has also acknowledged that importation proponents have the 60 Senate votes necessary to break a filibuster.

To ensure that he has a hand in shaping legislation, Enzi co-sponsored a successful amendment to the Senate budget resolution creating a reserve fund for an importation bill that comes out of HELP. At the hearing, Enzi emphasized the need to move cautiously, and asked if hearing co-sponsor Byron Dorgan (D-ND) was interested in reviving the Prairie Prescriptions Pilot Project, a proposal Dorgan made last spring to former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson to allow North Dakota to host a two-year importation demonstration program.

Noting that other states have made similar requests, Enzi said starting importation with state demos before going national would allow problems to be spotted and resolved in local laboratories.

Dorgan responded that he proposed a demonstration project "only because we were unable to make any progress with the administration on a broader approach," and he noted pointedly that "we're still waiting for a response" on the Prairie Prescriptions proposal.