Just a few days ago, the Food and Drug Administration green-lit Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ masterful idea to reduce drug prices in the United States — importing them from the country whose drug price controls have ripped off the American people for years.
Canada uses a Patented Medicine Prices Review Board to artificially reduce the cost of its prescription drugs. To make up for the lost revenue, the drug companies jack up costs on American healthcare consumers even though the U.S. is responsible for nearly 50 percent of the world’s research and development budget for medical research. Canada and Big Pharma win, leaving American families here at home with the bag.
Enter Governor DeSantis, who said enough is enough. He decided, “if you can’t beat them, join them,” and made it one of Florida’s priorities to begin purchasing those artificially cheap drugs directly from Canada.
After Presidents Trump and Biden pushed the FDA to allow for drug reimportation, DeSantis sued the FDA for what he saw as “reckless delays” in approving the request. Feeling the heat, the agency caved and permitted Florida to import millions of dollars worth of medications from the country this month.
Big Pharma, which just announced U.S. price hikes on more than 500 drugs this month, wants Americans to continue purchasing their products at ridiculously marked-up prices, but thanks to Gov. DeSantis, many Floridians will no longer have to do so. The Sunshine State has estimated importing these products from Canada could save over $150 million in just one year, and eight other states are now considering following DeSantis’ lead.
Politically, Gov. DeSantis’ success in this healthcare initiative is significant for several reasons.
For Gov. DeSantis specifically, it will buy him some brownie points with constituents who have criticized him for moving Big Pharma-friendly regulations against entities known as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) last year.
Health plans hire PBMs to negotiate lower prices, which Big Pharma does not like for obvious reasons. While MAGA-type conservatives have criticized Sen. Bernie Sanders and others for trying to regulate them at Big Pharma’s behest, disappointed Floridians have pointed out that Gov. DeSantis has done the same thing. Journalist Chris Ingram called the move a “rare mistake” for DeSantis, who he said was fooled by Big Pharma’s “misleading advertisements.”
The chairman of the Duval County Democratic Party even used this odd bedfellows coalition of DeSantis and Big Pharma to make a cheap political attack on the governor, writing that “when it comes to reining in the major pharmaceutical companies, the governor always talks the talk, but he never seems to walk the walk.”
That said, DeSantis bucking Big Pharma in this mammoth way now, during presidential primary season, demonstrates where his allegiances genuinely are and may even foreshadow his desire to roll back Florida’s other pro-Pharma regulations in the near future.
For America’s healthcare future more broadly, it demonstrates that the U.S. is no longer willing to subsidize the rest of the world’s drug costs.
Think tank analysts and cable news talking heads have complained about other countries’ drug price controls for decades, but few have had the guts to do anything about it. DeSantis dared to challenge the status quo, and over 15 percent of the states in this nation are already considering following suit. Tens of millions of dollars will remain in the American people’s wallets as a result.
The best news is that DeSantis will also effectively make subsidies disappear across the globe.
With billions of dollars on the line, Big Pharma will all but inevitably begin pulling its donor strings worldwide, pushing its allied politicians to remove the price controls that are killing its bottom line. Healthcare markets worldwide will become that much more free and consumer-friendly.
It is not always easy doing what’s politically hard, but it’s always worth doing. Kudos to Gov. DeSantis for bucking the donor class in such a significant way. This is a move that the American people will not soon forget.
Ives Holganza is a clinic manager, medical administrator, and registered nurse with 15 years of experience in the healthcare industry.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.