Many drugs on sale here come from the United States. But because of the regulations, U.S. drug companies are often obliged to sell to Canadian wholesalers at lower prices than they get in the United States. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the Washington-based trade association that represents the drug industry, opposes price controls. Market-based pricing is needed to ensure that drug companies can cover the huge cost of developing and testing new drugs, it contends. In its view, price controls are part of the reason that Canada is not developing many new drugs on its own.
Price controls discourage private investment in innovation.
While Bush and Gore debate what if anything to do about drug prices in the United States, other politicians are trying to help Americans tap into the Canadian system. The bill would lift a ban on U.S. pharmacists re-importing drugs from other countries. Rep. Bernard Sanders, an independent from Vermont who last year started taking senior citizens on bus trips into Canada to buy prescription drugs, has said it is a moral outrage that U.S. pharmaceutical companies can charge Americans three times what they charge for drugs in Canada. And every one is saying it's become the issue. Some of them are significantly cheaper.