Claim: States look to lower drug costs, consider Canadian imports.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Canada–United States trade relations
text: of US$10.5 billion cost to businesses in delays and uncertain travel time have affected trade. One ongoing and complex trade issue involves the importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada to the United States. Due to the Canadian government's price controls as part of their Single-payer medical system, prices for prescription drugs can be a fraction of the price paid by consumers in the unregulated U.S. market. While laws in the United States have been passed at the national level against such sales, specific state and local governments have passed their own legislation to allow the trade to continue. American

title: Consumer import of prescription drugs
text: in another. People in the United States have easy access to Canada. The quality of medicine in Canada is comparable to that of the United States. Drug prices are often much lower in Canada than in the United States. To save money, some consumers in the United States seek to purchase drugs in Canada. Different people have published different perspectives on this practice. One major on-line supplier, CanadaDrugs.com, has announced it will close on July 13, 2018 as part of an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. Consumers may feel that prescription drugs which are available to multiple countries

title: Pharmacy
text: to U.S. consumers, who pay one of the world's highest drug prices. In recent years, many consumers in the US and in other countries with high drug costs, have turned to licensed Internet pharmacies in India, Israel and the UK, which often have even lower prices than in Canada. In the United States, there has been a push to legalize importation of medications from Canada and other countries, in order to reduce consumer costs. While in most cases importation of prescription medications violates Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations and federal laws, enforcement is generally targeted at international drug suppliers,

title: Online pharmacy
text: from online pharmacies in Canada." According to a Wall Street Journal/Harris Online poll in 2006, 80 percent of Americans favor importing drugs from Canada and other countries. Factors independently associated with importation by U.S. residents are age greater than 45 years, south or west region of residence, Hispanic ethnicity, college education, poor or near poor poverty status, lack of U.S. citizenship, travel to developing countries, lack of health insurance, high family out-of-pocket medical costs, trouble finding a healthcare provider, fair or poor self-reported health status, filling a prescription on the Internet, and using online chat groups to learn about health.

title: Healthcare in Canada
text: a form of cancer, and was not life-threatening. In fact, the mortality rate for patients with a Rathke's cleft cyst is zero percent. Some US citizens travel to Canada for health care related reasons. These reasons frequently involve seeking lower costs. Many US citizens purchase prescription drugs from Canada, either over the Internet or by traveling there to buy them in person, because prescription drug prices in Canada are substantially lower than prescription drug prices in the United States; this cross-border purchasing has been estimated at $1 billion annually. Because medical marijuana is legal in Canada but illegal in most

title: Health care reforms proposed during the Obama administration
text: room and coming to an agreement, with the government stepping in to set prices if they fail. Congressional proponents argue that drugs manufactured overseas by U.S. companies could be imported and purchased more cheaply in the U.S. Drug manufacturers argue that certain foreign countries have price controls, which they recoup by charging higher prices in the U.S. Whitehouse spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Obama is supportive of importing drugs, provided safety concerns related to the drugs can be addressed. This is because drugs manufactured outside the country may be held to different standards. According to Bloomberg News, drugmakers agreed in

title: Comparison of the healthcare systems in Canada and the United States
text: cost of drugs in the United States. In the U.S., $728 per capita is spent each year on drugs, while in Canada it is $509. At the same time, consumption is higher in Canada, with about 12 prescriptions being filled per person each year in Canada and 10.6 in the United States. The main difference is that patented drug prices in Canada average between 35% and 45% lower than in the United States, though generic prices are higher. The price differential for brand-name drugs between the two countries has led Americans to purchase upward of $1 billion US in drugs

title: Healthcare in Canada
text: classes in 2009 and sixth in 2013. The drugs studied were selected on the basis that the conditions treated had high incidence, prevalence and/or mortality, caused significant long-term morbidity and incurred high levels of expenditure and significant developments in prevention or treatment had been made in the last 10 years. The study noted considerable difficulties in cross border comparison of medication use. A 2017 cost-effectiveness analysis by the Fraser Institute showed that "although Canada ranks among the most expensive universal-access health-care systems in the OECD, its performance for availability and access to resources is generally below that of the average

title: Prescription drug prices in the United States
text: in this group of countries. Low levels of drug spending in Canada are not solely attributable to the regulatory activities of the government, but also the actions of provincial and private insurance plans. These plans prevents price inflation through formulary management, independent clinical review of new products, reference-based pricing, the LCA, and limited use program. In reviewing formularies, the drug program reviews the therapeutic advantage of one product over the existing formulary, and only adds new drugs if program costs are unchanged. The reference-based pricing entails having a “reference product” for each category that is the baseline price, and utilizes

title: Prescription drug prices in the United States
text: lower cost prescription drugs from foreign countries – as done by 2% of U.S. consumers in 2011 and 2012 – is likely not an effective public health solution. However, if the federal government modified reimportation laws, the FDA could conduct a comprehensive assessment on manufacturing standards in other countries, and allow importation of drugs that meet or exceed U.S. safety standards for drug manufacturing. Prescription drug prices in the United States Prescription drug prices in the United States have been among the highest in the world. The high cost of prescription drugs became a major topic of discussion in the

title: Access to medicines
text: raised the price of the drug from $13.50 a tablet to $750, a 5000% increase. A number of countries and organizations have efforts to improve access to medicines in specific areas of the world. The Canada's Access to Medicines Regime allows developing countries to bring in medicines at lower cost. It specifically allows companies in Canada who may not own the right to make a medication to do so for export to certain countries in the developing world. Médecins Sans Frontières has had such a campaign since 1999 known as the Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines. In Tanzania, the

title: Comparison of the healthcare systems in Canada and the United States
text: price on patented products, either comparing it to similar drugs already on the market, or by taking the average price in seven developed nations. Prices are also lowered through more limited patent protection in Canada. In the U.S., a drug patent may be extended five years to make up for time lost in development. Some generic drugs are thus available on Canadian shelves sooner. The pharmaceutical industry is important in both countries, though both are net importers of drugs. Both countries spend about the same amount of their GDP on pharmaceutical research, about 0.1% annually The United States spends more

title: Comparison of the healthcare systems in Canada and the United States
text: per year from Canadian pharmacies. There are several reasons for the disparity. The Canadian system takes advantage of centralized buying by the provincial governments that have more market heft and buy in bulk, lowering prices. By contrast, the U.S. has explicit laws that prohibit Medicare or Medicaid from negotiating drug prices. In addition, price negotiations by Canadian health insurers are based on evaluations of the clinical effectiveness of prescription drugs, allowing the relative prices of therapeutically similar drugs to be considered in context. The Canadian Patented Medicine Prices Review Board also has the authority to set a fair and reasonable

title: Crime in Canada
text: penalties tended to favor drug smuggling. In particular, Canada did not criminalize the possession of precursor chemicals for drugs like methamphetamine. After the 1970s, synthetic drugs overtook liquor as the main item smuggled into the US and by the 1990s Canada supplied large amounts of high-grade marijuana, ecstasy and methamphetamine. Quebec mobsters, relocated to Florida, maintained two large pill making operations in Quebec from 1981 to 1986, shipping 13.5 million methaqualone tablets to the US. By the early 2000s, Canada was a net exporter of marijuana to US, although comprised only one-fifth the amount coming from Mexico. A pound valued

title: Prescription drug prices in the United States
text: the Health Outcomes Research Group, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York and Steven Pearson from the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, Boston. , prices of brand name drugs were significantly higher in the United States (US) than in Canada, India, the UK and other countries, nearly all of which have price controls, while prices for generic drugs tended to be higher in Canada. One of the reasons drug prices are much higher in the US compared to other industrialized countries is that the U.S. lacks a national healthcare system that directly negotiates with the pharmaceutical industry. Rather, most

title: Online pharmacy
text: President Obama’s budget supports a plan to allow people to buy cheaper drugs from other countries. A 2016 study suggested that providing health insurance coverage may significantly reduce personal prescription drug importation and the subsequent risk of exposure to counterfeit, adulterated, and substandard medications. Further, health insurance coverage is likely to be particularly effective at reducing importation among persons who were Hispanic; born in Latin America, Russia, or Europe; and traveled to developing countries. A report in the journal Clinical Therapeutics found that U.S. consumers face a risk of getting counterfeit drugs because of the rising Internet sales of drugs,

title: Comparison of the healthcare systems in Canada and the United States
text: of what Americans spend on health care and have longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates. Many Americans have access to quality healthcare. All Canadians have access to similar care at a considerably lower cost." There is "no question" that the lower cost has come at the cost of "restriction of supply with sub-optimal access to services," said Bell. A new approach is targeting waiting times, which are reported on public websites. In 2007 Shona Holmes, a Waterdown, Ontario woman who had a Rathke's cleft cyst removed at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, sued the Ontario government for failing

title: Supply management (Canada)
text: the cost of importation intentionally prohibitive. Once imports exceed the "minimum access commitments" as required by the World Trade Organization (WTO), which allow for imports at no or lower tariffs, in Canada imports face prohibitive tariffs such as 168% for eggs, 285% for chicken, 246% for cheese and over 300% for butter. These steep tariffs have been often cited to criticize SM for creating barriers to free trade and artificially raising prices by SM critics such as David E. Bond (2010), Andrew Coyne (2011), Hall Findlay (2012) and President Trump in 2016. TRQs came into use after World Trade Organization

title: Drug policy of Canada
text: in the House of Commons to allow for lesser penalties for the possession of cannabis, while toughening penalties for large drug operations. While street prices of cocaine in Canada is higher than they are in South American and East Asian countries; in the four-year period of 1997 to 2001 the street price of the drug fell by almost thirteen US dollars a gram, from $94.3/gram to $81.6/gram. However, since 1995, the Canadian crime rate has been decreasing, from 131 persons per 100,000 incarcerated in 1995 to 107 persons per 100,000 in 2004. Canada is a producer and exporter of both

title: Gary Doer
text: early 2007, Doer said that Manitoba would not enter a free trade deal signed between Alberta and British Columbia. He instead called for a national trade accord. Doer met with other western Canadian premiers in June 2009 to introduce a plan for the collective purchase of prescription drugs. The premiers indicated that the plan could save taxpayers millions of dollars. In late 2008, the federal Liberal and New Democratic parties announced plans to defeat the Conservatives on a motion of no confidence and create a coalition government. The plan was ultimately unsuccessful, and the Conservatives remained in power. Doer did