Bernie Sanders said he will allow lower-cost prescription drugs into the U.S. from other countries, particularly from Canada, on his first day in office as president.
The Vermont senator described his vision on MSNBC Thursday, one-upping the Trump administration a day after it announced plans to experiment with allowing the importation of drugs from other countries, after MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle said Sanders’ “Medicare for all” plan could not be implemented in a day.
“What I will do is have my secretary of the HHS, Health and Human Services, and the head of the FDA make sure that the medicine coming in from Canada or any other country is, in fact, perfectly safe. Not a hard thing to do,” Sanders said. “You are dealing with huge pharmaceutical industries. You can follow the product from its development in the factory to its warehouse back into the country.”
“And when you do that, we can very substantially lower the cost of prescription drugs on day one by having pharmacists and distributors bring that product back into the united States,” he added.
Sanders, who is running for president a second time this election cycle, has 16.4% support — good enough for second place behind former Vice President Joe Biden — in the RealClearPolitics average of polls for the Democratic primary contest.
The Trump administration’s proposal, the Safe Importation Action Plan, calls for a rulemaking to authorize state, wholesaler, or pharmacy plans to try to set up drug importation programs that abide by Food and Drug Administration safety standards. The FDA would also work with manufacturers to assure that the drugs sold to foreign countries abide by FDA regulations to be sold in the U.S.
