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While it is definitely true that these companies spend a great deal of money on research and development, for which they certainly deserve and in fact need to be compensated (not to mention their right to make a profit, and the fact that profit potential is a major driver in innovation), the amount of profit and compensation that comes solely from the United States is inordinate when compared to that provided by other countries. Nearly half of all revenue going to pharmaceutical companies every year comes from United States' consumers (Sawkar, 2005). The argument that drug reimportation would damage companies' innovation and profit potentials implies that it is the United States' sole responsibility to provide funds for these goals; if reimportation were allowed then prices would even out, meaning other countries would start paying a fair share towards research and development costs while the United States would experience a savings.
The arguments against drug reimportation, then, are rather weak. The arguments for it, on the other hand, are quite compelling -- rising prescription costs are a major problem for many senior...
This isn't simply a problem with holes in Medicare/Medicaid coverage, as this simply shifts the burden to the U.S. government and ultimately to tax payers, so filling these holes would not ultimately change anything for the country overall; competition through reimportation is a better solution (Wu et al., 2009).
References
Choudhry, N.K., & Detsky, A.S. (2005). A perspective on U.S. drug reimportation. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 293(3). Retrieved from http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/293/3/358
Sawkar, M. (2005, March). High U.S. drug prices: Causes and cures. Paper presented for The Drug Reimportation Debate. Retrieved from www.sawkar.net/blog/high_drug_prices.doc
Wu, M.Y, Kennedy, J., Cohen, L.J., & Wang, C.C. (2009). Coverage of atypical antipsychotics among Medicare drug plans in the state of Washington: Changes between 2007 and 2008. Primary Care Companion Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 11 (6), 316- 321.
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