When the Biden administration passed a law to make it legal to import cheaper drugs from Canada, Florida was the first State to jump on board. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration has lowered the cost of some life-saving medications, such as insulin though many other drugs are still highly inflated.
Many Americans already buy their meds medicines from pharmacies in Canada although (technically) it’s illegal to import them.
Like every developed nation, Canada sets limits on the prices drugmakers can charge if they wish to enter the market, which is controlled by the government. Naturally, US drug companies have fought this legislation for years, claiming that the imports would ‘expose U.S. patients to risks of counterfeit or adulterated drugs.’
Under the new federal requirements though, state officials must test the drugs to make sure they’re authentic and relabel them so that they comply with U.S. standards.
Meanwhile, some Canadians are angry saying it could make their own drug supply shortages even worse.
“The U.S. needs to solve its own drug pricing problem, and not rely on other countries to do it for them,” said Dr. Joel Lexchin, a professor emeritus at the School of Health Policy and Management at York University in Toronto.
The US has notoriously high prescription drug prices in the world, and it was only in 2022 did Congress successfully pass a law allowing the federal government to negotiate prices for a small number of medications used by seniors in the Medicare program.