House approves drug reimportation

[NewJerseyDem]

In a surprisingly strong 243-186 vote both Republicans and Democrats joined together to pass the bill overwhelmingly despite the opposition of the Republican leadership and Bush.

[lazarus]

1. link?

Need a link, please.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. It must have just happened

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0703/25drugs.html

Here's a link from AJC prior to the vote.

WASHINGTON -- As the House of Representatives moved toward a vote on legislation to allow Americans to buy prescription drugs from Canada and other foreign countries, supporters struggled to overcome opposition from the Bush admistration and the pharmaceutical industry.

Permitting so-called reimportation of drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration "could save American consumers at least $635 billion of their own money each year," the bill's language said.

"Americans unjustly pay up to 1,000 percent more to fill their prescriptions than do consumers in other countries."

The bill would let individuals, pharmacists and wholesalers bring in prescription drugs from countries ranging from Canada and Australia to Israel, Japan, South Africa and European Union nations.

[NewJerseyDem]

3. It happened a few minutes ago

n/t

[leftyandproud]

4. AND the underfunded head start...

by ONE vote. How much ya wanna bet it was Gephardt MIA?

[NewJerseyDem]

10. Gephardt was MIA

I loathe him now. If he wants to miss votes that the outcome is clear then fine, it doesn't matter. But, he can't miss really tight and important votes. Even though his vote probably wouldn't matter, because more republicans would just change their vote, he should still be there to force those wimpy moderate republicans to either take a stand and vote no or give in to DeLay and vote yes. Everyone was there on that vote except him and Pastor who's father was ill so he had a good reason. Campaigning for president isn't a good reason. He did show up to vote no on free trade just because he wants labors backing. What a jackass.

[DemBones DemBones]

5. Good on them! I signed a petition supporting this last week.

A bright spot amidst the bad news! :-)

[duid12]

6. We will see...

>>A bright spot amidst the bad news!

Maybe...how many people voted for it in the house knowing that it had almost no chance of making it thru the senate, and if by chance it did, faces a veto from the president?

They need to decide between helping the sick and the elderly or padding the wallets of the drug companies...what are the chances they will pick the first? Sick and elderly don't make as many campaign contributions...

[MaineDem]

7. Here's a link to the roll call

http://clerkweb.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.exe?year=2003&rollnumber=445

[Noordam]

8. AP link

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Importing-Drugs.html

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

9. kick

[Nottingham]

11. Saw it on the News this is AWESOME! Rebellion HA HA HA!

Bush is gonna be pissed about this one!

He will probably Veto this! :bounce:

[NewJerseyDem]

12. It is part of prescription drugs bill

It has been added to the prescription drugs bill so he wouldn't want to veto such an important and popular bill. It would be politically disastrous.

[goobergunch]

13. Wrong.

It's a stand-alone bill...H.R. 2427.

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_bills&docid=f:h2427ih.txt.pdf

[NewJerseyDem]

15. I'm not sure

It was a stand alone bill but I think that they are combining it with the prescription drugs bill in the conference committee. I'm not sure exactly what they are doing, but that is what I understood to be the situation, I could be wrong. It has happened before.

[CheshireCat]

14. Damn that Gephardt!

He is screwing us BIG TIME! This is the second vote he has missed where his vote would have been critical to the outcome. First the "overtime" bill and now this one.

[newyawker99]

16. kick

:kick: