Bill Statistics

The Middle Class Position

The middle class supports.

How They Voted

56% with middle class
43% against middle class
1% did not vote
Pie Chart

Grades

Grade C
House

The House receives a grade of C for its support of the middle class on this piece of legislation.

243 Representatives voted for the middle-class position; 186 voted against.

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House

Pharmaceutical Market Access Act of 2003

in
Introduced:
06.11.2003 [House]
Roll Call #: Yea-, Nay-
Never came to a vote in the Senate.
The Legislation: 

The Pharmaceutical Market Access Act of 2003 amends the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to circulate regulations allowing qualifying individuals, pharmacists, and wholesalers, to import certain covered prescription drugs to the United States from outside of the country. It also amends provisions regarding the testing of imported covered products, declaring that specified tests, including ones involving authenticity and degradation of products, shall not be required unless the importer is a wholesaler.

The Middle-Class Position: 

The Middle Class Supports: America is the only industrialized country in the world without universal health care. In 2003, American consumers spent more than $193 billion on prescription drugs, many of which could have been purchased for as much as half the cost in Canada. While the elderly comprise a large share of the domestic market for prescription drugs, concern over the rising cost of prescription drugs is not limited to low income seniors; increasingly, many middle-age, moderate and high-income Americans without health insurance—about 18 million—are finding themselves forced to shoulder the full price of prescription drugs. This bill would give U.S. consumers the option of purchasing domestically manufactured FDA approved drugs from foreign vendors at a substantially lower cost.

From the Experts: 

“As part of the effort to reclaim Medicare and to move this nation into an affordable, dependable, reliable prescription drug program for seniors, I think importation from Canada is justified.” – Mayor Michael Albano, first U.S. mayor to begin a municipal prescription drug re-importation program in Springfield, Massachusetts (December 9, 2003)

“Re-importation is not a panacea for the problem of soaring drug costs, but it does hold the potential to place some downward pressure on the double-digit increases in costs that Americans face each year.” –William Novelli, President, American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) (August 7,2003)

Beyond this Bill: 

As local support for the re-importation of prescription drugs grows, legislators concerned about the financial stability of the middle class should push for the passage of this bill in the Senate. Among the major points of contention preventing its final passage is the growing concern over the safety and effectiveness of drugs purchased from vendors outside of the United States that are not subject to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) standards. This concern is understandable, but not insurmountable. Legislators must find creative ways of ensuring that middle-class Americans have access to safe and affordable health care; passing this bill is an important step.

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