Insurable Interest On NCOIL Agenda

One resolution encourages Congress and the Bush administration to address the “significant price disparity in the international trade of brand-name prescription drugs by creating a safe, legitimate program for drug importation that includes both the current U.S. personal use policy and a retail/wholesale component or by negotiating trade agreements with other industrialized nations.”

The U.S. personal use policy permits an individual to import for personal use a 90-day supply of prescription drugs through mail-order pharmacies and other venues.

A separate resolution on the same issue encourages the Canadian Minister of Health to continue to allow the importation of medications by U.S. consumers and not to “take actions that may have serious health implications for individuals accessing medications from Canada.”

States including Rhode Island have passed laws that enable consumers to continue to import medications from Canada.

Kennedy says he and other legislators in his state constantly hear complaints over the cost of prescription drugs. Rhode Island allows nonresident licensing of pharmacies and that licensing has been extended to Canadian pharmacies, he says, adding there is the possibility it may be extended further to include Ireland, the United Kingdom and Europe.

The reason this option is important, Kennedy asserts, is because “there are Americans who now must decide whether to buy food and gas or prescription drugs.”

He says the argument that drugs imported from abroad are not safe is a faulty one because pharmaceutical companies send prescription drugs over the border to begin with.

The resolutions seek to address opposition to importation from the Bush administration as well as the possibility that the Canadian government may establish guidelines that would require Americans to have a doctors visit in Canada before receiving prescriptions from Canada, he says.

Ultimately, according to Kennedy, legislation passed in Rhode Island and other states that permits importation of prescription drugs could end up in the courts. The Food and Drug Administration has indicated that such a practice is not permitted. However, Kennedy says, “there is not a lot of confidence in the FDA right now.”

In addition to these issues, legislators also will discuss broker compensation and fiduciary responsibility and what legislation, if any, should be introduced in state legislatures, says Susan Nolan, executive director of NCOIL, Troy, N.Y.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, February 25, 2005. Copyright 2005 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.