U.S. may reconsider imported drugs

? The Bush administration and Republican congressional leaders are being forced to take a hard new look at the idea of importing cheaper prescription drugs from foreign countries as an election-year clamor grows for removing prohibitions.

Continuing increases in prescription drug prices — the fastest-growing item in health care — and the pitched partisan battle over the new Medicare law have given the topic greater prominence in Congress and on the campaign trail.

AARP, the 35-million-member seniors’ group that gave Republican-backed Medicare legislation a critical endorsement last year, backs allowing imports.

So do two Republican senators, former GOP leader Trent Lott of Mississippi and John Cornyn of Texas, both changing their position in recent days.

And so do nearly two-thirds of Americans, according to a recent AP poll.

Drug importation has become a proxy for talking about the high cost of prescription drugs in the United States.

Spending on prescription drugs is the fastest-growing component of health care costs, rising 15.3 percent in 2002.

Drug costs are expected to outstrip the overall growth in health care spending for the next 10 years, and that projection doesn’t even take into account the new Medicare prescription drug benefit that begins in 2006. Many economists think the change will lead to an additional increase in costs.

“We’re not talking about an academic situation. We’re talking about seniors who are going to bed tonight making the decision whether to pay for prescription drugs or to eat,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., an author of an importation bill, said at a hearing this week.