Gutknecht visits seniors to talk about liberalizing drug importation

Or: If you can’t bring about the big solution, make political hay with the small one

At one point in the question-and-answer period a woman spoke up that she had a relative who worked for a drug company. “They call him a drug rep,” she said, “but he’s not really. He’s a golf pro. All he does is go from one golf course to another setting up matches. That’s what he does.”

Rep. Gil Gutknecht (MN-01) visited with a dozen or so seniors at Old Main Village in Mankato on Monday. His theme was one he’s been carrying for the last few years: Legalize the importation of prescription medications from approved foreign pharmacies.

To prove his point he introduced a Madison Lake citizen, Maurice Hardie, who recently had a shipment of Lipitor from Canada confiscated by the Customs Department, a division of Homeland Security.

It’s an advocacy that’s hard to argue against. As Gutknecht admitted, all other major industrialized countries in the world in some way negotiate lower prices from the major drug companies for their citizens. That’s why prescription drug prices can be as much as 60% lower in Canada, the U.K., Germany or France than in the U.S.

Even in the U.S., various parts of the federal government negotiate with drug manufacturers for lower prices for their constituencies