By Sen. Troy Jackson
(D-Allagash)
Where can hard working Maine families find safe, affordable prescription drugs?
For nine years, Mainers found what they were looking for online at CanRx, a mail-order pharmacy based in Canada. But in August 2012, the Republican Attorney General at that time stopped the program. He ruled that CanRx could not be licensed in Maine, and therefore could not continue filling mail-order prescriptions for Maine people. That decision caused a lot of financial pain for Maine people – and provided added financial gain for big drug companies.
That just didn’t make sense to me and a majority of legislators in both the Maine House and Senate. It never sits well with me when government helps big corporations take advantage of ordinary folks. It ought to work the other way around, and so we stood up on the side of Maine people.
My bill restored the CanRx program so Maine people can once again save money on life-saving prescription drugs. In some cases, Maine people live hours away from the nearest pharmacy and really have no access to less expensive drugs without online mail-order providers like CanRx. By standing up on the side of consumers we helped Maine people stretch their family budgets to pay for medicines they need from the most affordable source they can find.
My bill became law in June and is now set to go into effect. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that big drug companies and their powerful trade association called PhRMA have filed a lawsuit to again stop CanRx from doing business in Maine. That’s just outrageous, and we’re not going let big drug companies keep taking excessive profits from Maine people.
In fact, our new Attorney General Janet Mills has already said that she sees nothing in my bill that is a legal issue.
We looked at the track record of CanRx for nine years right here in Maine as well as in other states including Vermont and Rhode Island. We couldn’t find any problems with safety, as some have claimed. CanRx fills prescriptions through pharmacies in Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand where regulations and safety oversight equal or surpass what we have in place here in the United States.
We looked at the savings Maine people received through CanRx and found lower prices across the board compared to the high prices that drug companies are trying to protect. In many instances, CanRx can fill prescriptions for as little as half the price of over the counter drugs sold in pharmacies in Maine.
Right here in Maine the cost of medical procedures can vary tremendously depending on where you go and who does the procedure. The Maine Health Data Organization lets Maine people compare the costs of some medical procedures around the State – MRIs, colonoscopies, hip replacements, X-rays, for example. At one time – and costs do vary over time and place – an MRI at a facility in Scarborough cost $1,800, yet a week later and only a few miles away at a different facility the cost was only $800. (Source: Portland Press Herald, May 16, 2010, “The costs of health care – you paid how much?”)
We find the same variation in pricing prescription drugs of all kinds. Consumers can save money by choosing generic drugs and by shopping for the lowest priced prescription brand names. According to a study by the Alliance for Retired Americans, a common dosage of Celebrex (a medicine for Arthritis,) costs $85.99 in the United States and $44.76 in Canada. (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/462504) This is only one example of the difference in prices and providing options should be a no-brainer in terms of helping our citizens cope with financial burden.
When we help people make better decisions about purchasing drugs we help lower costs and we help people make ends meet. As my Senate colleague Dr. Geoff Gratwick from Bangor has said, “patients suffer when they don’t get the medicine they need, not if they get their medicine from Canada.”
When it comes to lowering drug costs and health care costs, I think Maine people are right to ask, “Whose side are you on, anyway?” – by restoring the CanRx law we’re on the side of hard-pressed Maine people who need affordable, high quality, safe and effective drugs.
Sen. Troy Jackson (D-Allagash) is serving his third term representing Aroostook County in the Maine Senate. In the Senate, he serves as assistant majority leader and as chair of the Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry Committee. He can be reached at either 398-4081 (home) or 436-0763 (cell), or via e-mail at SenTroy.Jackson@legislature.maine.gov.
