Baldacci pitches plan for Canadian drugs

By ANN S. KIM , Portland Press Herald Writer

Copyright © 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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LOOKING TO THE NORTH HERE ARE SOME cities and states with plans to buy prescription drugs from Canada: Portland offers its employees the opportunity to buy prescription drugs from Canada through CanaRx. Springfield, Mass., was the first city to offer employees prescription drugs from Canada through the Windsor, Ontario-based CanaRx. Pittsfield, Mass., and Burlington, Vt., offer the same prescription plan as Portland and Springfield and use the same supplier, CanaRx Services Inc. Boston started a pilot program in July of this year. The program lets city workers and retirees get prescription drugs from Total Care Pharmacy of Calgary, Alberta. Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and New Hampshire have Web sites for people to link to Canadian Internet pharmacies. To top of story

AUGUSTA — Gov. John Baldacci announced two proposals aimed at lowering prescription drug costs for Mainers Thursday, including one to establish a wholesale distribution center that would make medications from Canada available to pharmacies in the state. Baldacci is seeking a waiver from the federal government to allow bulk reimportation from Canada of prescription drugs made in the United States. Baldacci said he requested permission in a letter sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.

No other state has been granted such a waiver from the federal government. Requests from Illinois, Minnesota and Vermont have been denied, and Vermont has filed a lawsuit over the matter, said William Hubbard, the Food and Drug Administration's associate commissioner for policy and planning.

"We're going to push the envelope and continue to push to get this done," Baldacci said at a news conference in the Hall of Flags.

A second program, the Rural Rx Initiative, would help certain health centers and hospitals link up with pharmacies in order to offer discounts to their patients. The average savings would range from 25 percent to 50 percent.

There are 80 federally qualified health centers in Maine that cater primarily to the uninsured and underinsured. They are already authorized to buy drugs at discounts similar to those given to veterans, but many need a partner pharmacy. "We're kind of a matchmaker," explained Trish Riley, head of the governor's health policy and finance office.

The reimportation program would provide an economic boost to the Penobscot Nation. The tribe would operate a distribution center on Indian Island and has already won a $400,000 Community Development Block Grant to turn a vacant building into a warehouse. Rep. Donna Loring, the tribe's representative in the Legislature, estimated that the building renovation could provide about 100 jobs in the community.

Many details remain unsettled, but the program aims to let consumers in Maine benefit from lower prices in Canada, where retail prices for some popular drugs are half of those paid by Americans.

Sen. Michael Brennan, D-Portland, is expected to introduce enabling legislation that would set up guidelines for the program in January, and Baldacci is creating a work group comprised of representatives of various state agencies, pharmacists, insurers and consumers.

It wasn't yet known what sort of discounts Mainers could expect through the program, but Riley said she hoped the savings for consumers could be even better than what they could get through Canadian mail-order.

Outside a drugstore in Portland, Mary Allen Lindemann said she was terrified by rising prescription costs.

"I think it's a sad statement that we have to go to another country" for affordable medications, Lindemann said.

The owner of a chain of coffee shops, she has seen medications getting more expensive, even with the prescription card that comes with the health care coverage her full-time workers receive.

One of her employees, Virginia Anderson, 25, said she did not bother to refill her prescription the last time she was injured.

"I figured it's not that bad and I can get through it, take ibuprofen," she said.

U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe called Baldacci's announcement of the importation program a startling reminder that states are struggling to meet health needs while controlling costs.

Snowe, a Republican, is cosponsor of a measure to allow the import of drugs under a system that would require the Food and Drug Administration to register and inspect importers.

"There is no conceivable reason why our government - particularly the FDA - cannot make drug importation work," Snowe said in a statement.

Bill Pierce, a spokesman for the federal Health and Human Services Department, said Thompson does not have the authority to allow states to import drugs. A Medicare law passed last year allows Thompson to waive importation rules for individuals when he can certify the safety of the drugs, something he has been unable to do, Pierce said.

Hubbard, of the FDA, said his agency regulates the drug supply but that the laws do not provide a waiver provision.

House Minority Leader Joe Bruno was skeptical of Baldacci's proposal, saying that even if Maine could get a waiver, it lacks the money and the know-how to make it work.

"This is a political plan to make them look good in the election," said Bruno, a Raymond Republican who is a pharmacist and the president of a 14-store chain of pharmacies. "You could shoot holes through this all day long."

Even small pharmacies have at least $400,000 worth of inventory, he said, and with 300 pharmacies in the state, such an operation would require $120 million for inventory alone, he said.

Staff Writer Ann Kim can be contacted at 791-6383 or at:

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