Calif Gov sides with US citizens on imports

The USA's Medicare Plan D has completed more than its first month, and its debut has been plagued with problems. Low- income seniors and people with disabilities are still having trouble getting their drugs, states are footing the bill, and the collective cry to allow importation of drugs from foreign companies is getting louder.

Recently, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger added his voice to the groundswell (Marketletter January 16), urging Congress to let the free market work and to "take action in 2006 to allow the importation of safe, more affordable medicines." Like more than 20 other states, California is currently footing the bill for as many as one million low-income seniors who have been turned away by pharmacists or overcharged co-payments because of glitches in computer databases. "Right now, the new Medicare Part D prescription drug program is not working as intended," the Governor said in a recent release.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that the federal government will not repay the states, telling them that they will have to recoup the money from the private plans, says Paul Zickler of DoctorSolve Healthcare Solutions, a Canadian on-line pharmacy service. "The states are being forced to fix the government's Medicare problems, and it's costing them dearly. If American seniors had the freedom to buy their medications from across the border, it would go a long way towards alleviating the problem. They wouldn't have to rely on an ill-fated system for their life-saving drugs, and they wouldn't be draining the resources of the American citizens," he added.