Administration Continues to Ask Americans to Pay

After a Year of Pondering, Task Force Fails To Provide

The following is the statement of Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA, about today's release of the Bush Administration's Importation Task Force Report:

"The Administration's drug reimportation report delivers a disappointing bag of coal to consumers for the holidays. For the big pharmaceutical industry, it continues the gift of trade protectionism that is worth billions in profits.

"The report repeats the same old slogans. It offers no new, creative ways to establish a cost-effective system for safe drug importation or encourage true and meaningful research on breakthrough drugs. Instead, it argues that American consumers must continue to pay the world's highest drug prices to fund the drug industry's research and development costs and maintain that industry's extraordinary profits.

"Rather than taking a year and spending taxpayer dollars to write a report that simply repeats the pharmaceutical industry's arguments against reimportation, the Administration should have focused on developing a system to provide Americans with access to affordable prescription drugs.

"Instead, it has repeated missed opportunities to provide drug price relief to American consumers, such as prohibiting the government from negotiating for lower drug prices for seniors as part of the Medicare drug bill, as the Department of Veterans Affairs currently does for veterans. Even departing Health and Human Services Secretary Thompson has lamented this prohibition.

"Unfortunately, with the release of the Task Force's report, the Administration has again shown that it would rather protect pharmaceutical industry profits than help consumers get access to the medicines they need."

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Families USA is the national organization for health care consumers. It is nonprofit and nonpartisan and advocates for high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

1201 New York Avenue NW, Suite 1100 · Washington, DC 20005
202-628-3030 · Email: info@familiesusa.org · www.familiesusa.org