Feingold Supports Measures to Lower Prescription Drug
Costs
August 3, 2000
Shell Lake, WI -- U.S. Senator Russ Feingold
today highlighted his
support for efforts to give consumers a fair price for prescription drugs.
Feingold recently joined Senators Jim Jeffords and Byron Dorgan to offer an amendment, which passed the Senate with
strong bipartisan support, to allow pharmacies and wholesalers to import
prescription drugs from outside the United States, including Canada.
Feingold is also a
cosponsor of the
Prescription Price Equity Act of 2000, which would deny tax breaks to pharmaceutical companies
that sell their products at a significantly higher price in the U.S. than
to certain other industrialized
countries.
Feingold’s amendment allowing the importation of
prescription drugs only applies to drugs approved by the FDA and made at
FDA-approved facilities using "good manufacturing practices." Such drugs
must be tested to prove that they are safe, effective, and authentic.
"This amendment will give consumers in Wisconsin the
ability to purchase prescription drugs at a lower cost and will therefore
increase access to affordable prescription drugs for all Americans,"
Feingold said. "The sweetheart deal that the industry currently enjoys has
created a virtual closed market with no competition."
Feingold also supports the Prescription Price Equity
Act of 2000, which takes tax breaks away from
pharmaceutical companies that sell their products at a significantly
higher price in the U.S. than to certain other industrialized countries.
Pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. receive approximately $4 billion each
year in tax benefits to encourage research and development for life-saving
drugs. Yet, at the same time, the companies that receive this huge tax
break sell drugs in the U.S. at much higher prices than they do in other
countries such as Japan, Germany and Switzerland.
"While it’s vitally important that the government support
research and development for drugs that can save lives, it’s unfair that
an industry which receives such a huge benefit from taxpayers should sell
its products at much higher prices in the U.S. than it does abroad,"
Feingold said.
Feingold's 50 th Listening
Session of 2000, and 554th since he was first elected, was held at
the Shell Lake City
Council Chambers, beginning at
7:30 a.m. Feingold’s 51st
session of the year and 555th since he was first elected took place
at the Wascott Town Hall
beginning at 9:45 a.m.
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