Colorado - Oppose SB 19-005
State Action
January 31, 2019
Colorado State Capitol
200 E Colfax Ave
Denver, CO 80203
Dear Legislators,
On behalf of the 36,405 members of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) in Colorado, I urge you to oppose Senate Bill 19-005. This legislation would direct the creation and implementation of a state program to import drugs from Canada. This bill is unnecessary and wasteful and will not deliver lower costs for patients.
The federal government is the sole authority that can determine whether the importation of drugs from any country is safe. No secretary of Health and Human Services or commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), of either party, has ever certified that importing pharmaceuticals would keep Americans safe from counterfeit drugs, including dangerous opioids. It is not the role of a state government to run an importation program. State officials are not equipped to assess the effectiveness or potency of foreign drugs, and an importation program would represent significant government overreach.
Moreover, the importation of drugs establishes price controls that are a feature of countries with socialized medicine, like Canada. Price controls inevitably result in less research and development, fewer jobs, and fewer cures. They also result in drug shortages, hurting patients more than anyone else. Furthermore, importation assumes that Canadian pharmacies will sell their drugs without a considerable mark-up to cover their handling costs or that pharmaceutical companies will sell more drugs than needed for the population of a Canadian province.
It would be better for Colorado state officials to ask their U.S. congressional delegation to create an environment that fosters competition and innovation and to continue to hold the FDA’s feet to the fire to make sure the backlog of generic drug applications awaiting approval is cleared. This would be a far more effective way to help bring down the price of prescription drugs than passing this harmful and counterproductive bill.
America and Colorado need policies that speed innovation and competition. Imported price controls that stifle it, like SB 19-005, should be rejected.
Sincerely,
Thomas A. Schatz
