Drug plan gets early Fla. House support

Some lawmakers favor DeSantis’ proposal to import Canadian drugs

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis, criticized last year for not having a health care platform while he campaigned, is getting support from some state lawmakers for his recently announced proposal that Florida start importing drugs from Canada.

Members of the House Health Quality Subcommittee on Tuesday voted 15-2 to approve a bill (HB 19) that would help carry out DeSantis’ plan.

“I just have to say, out loud, that I am stunned that this proposal is here. So thank you,” Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, told bill sponsor Tom Leek, R-Ormond Beach. “I say that in a good way.”

The United States spends $3.5 trillion on health care, or $10,739 per person, each year. One-tenth of that, about $333.4 billion, is spent on retail prescription drugs,

with 14 percent, or $46.7 billion, paid out-of- pocket by consumers.

A staff analysis of the House bill said the United States overall spends 30 percent to 190 percent more on prescription drugs than other developed countries and pays up to 174 percent more for the same prescription drugs.

Leek’s bill aims to lower those costs by establishing two drug importation programs.

One would allow the state to import drugs from Canada for Medicaid and prison health care. The other would make such drugs available to individual residents.

Both would need approval from the federal government.

But DeSantis, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump in the Republican primary, said he had spoken to the president personally and that Trump was “enthused” about the idea.

John Clark, chief security officer for Pfizer, said the proposed programs could increase the amount of counterfeit drugs that are coming into the country.

In 2008 there were 30 counterfeit versions of drugs that Pfizer manufactured. But with the proliferation of people ordering drugs off the internet, there are now 98 knock-off Pfizer drugs in the United States, he said.

Clark told the committee that “tens of thousands of citizens are dying every day because of counterfeit drugs.” The general public, though, isn’t aware of the problem because of an assumption that people are dying from underlying diseases, not from the counterfeit drugs.

While Clark warned of counterfeit drugs, fraud and dying patients, Zephyrhills businessman Bill Hepshire told lawmakers the bill would help people who cannot afford prescription drugs.

Hepshire, founder of the Zephyrhills-based Canadian Med Store, said that for 16 years he’s helped people who cannot afford the costs of their prescriptions obtain drugs from Canada.

“The people we typically help are senior citizens living on fixed incomes, smallbusiness owners on highdeductible health plans, and young parents who have children who suffer from serious allergies to peanuts or bee stings and require an EpiPen,” he said. “The one thing all of these people have in common is that they struggle every day to afford their life-saving medication.’’

The bill faces a more uncertain future in the Senate.

While a companion measure (SB 1452) has been filed, Senate President Bill Galvano said he is worried the state is overstepping its authority with the proposed regulatory structure of the program for individual residents. Galvano said Florida doesn’t have the authority to regulate the movement of medicine from state to state or from other countries.

“That is the province of the U.S. Congress,” he said.