Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
Editorials
Friday, December 29, 2000Importing prescription
drugs from abroadThe issue: The Clinton administration has killed a measure permitting importation of prescription drugs from foreign countries.
IF Americans are going to get relief from high prices for prescription drugs by importing drugs from foreign countries, Congress will have to tackle the problem again. The Clinton administration has killed a program created this year by Congress, saying the plan would not be safe and would not save money for consumers.
The law allowed pharmacists and wholesalers to import prescription drugs that met safety standards set by federal laws and regulations.
However, Congress at the last minute added a proviso saying that it would take effect only if the secretary of health and human services demonstrated that it would "pose no additional risk to the public's health and safety" and would "result in a significant reduction in the cost of covered products to the American consumer."
But Secretary Donna Shalala said the measure was badly flawed, in effect killing it.
President Clinton supported a version approved earlier by the Senate but expressed objections to revisions made in Senate-House negotiations and complained of "loopholes."
Among the objections made by Shalala was the possibility that drug companies could block imports by denying importers access to the labeling that must be used on any drugs sold in the United States.
Shalala also noted that authority for the program would have expired after five years. Consequently wholesalers would have been reluctant to invest in the equipment needed to test and distribute imported drugs because they could not be sure of long-term returns.
Under the law, drug manufacturers could not completely block the sale or distribution of imported drugs, but they could have tried to limit the supply or set the price of the drugs.
President-elect Bush said in one of the presidential debates that the program made sense. He may seek to revive the measure. If so, it should not contain those flaws.
The fact that people saw a need for such a program illustrates the incongruity of a system that makes U.S.-manufactured pharmaceuticals more expensive in this country than abroad. There would be no such need if Congress extended the Medicare program to include the cost of prescription drugs -- as it may indeed do.
Bulk purchases by the government could bring down drug prices substantially for the elderly. Medicare recipients with substantial resources could then be required to pay most of the drugs' costs with little or no subsidy, with only low-income beneficiaries receiving assistance.
Collapse of Clinton’s
Mideast peace effort
THERE never was much of a chance for Bill Clinton's last gambit for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. It was born of desperation, with Clinton's presidency about to become history and with it his opportunity to leave a peace pact as his legacy.
The president's proposal -- Palestinian sovereignty over Arab areas of Jerusalem, including the ultra-sensitive Temple Mount, plus Israeli withdrawal from 95 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza, in exchange for relinquishment of the so-called right of return to Israel proper by Palestinian refugees and their descendants -- was breathtaking in its audacity.
Even if it could have been given serious consideration at the Camp David summit last summer -- when it would have been the longest of long shots -- the package of proposals was unacceptable in the current atmosphere of outright hostility produced by months of violence.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, his offers of concessions rejected by Yasser Arafat at Camp David to the undisguised disgust of Clinton, still was willing to try for an agreement based on the new Clinton formula. Barak is in danger of losing his job to the hard-line conservative Ariel Sharon in an election early next year unless he can miraculously produce an agreement.
But Israelis appear unwilling to concede sovereignty over the Temple Mount, the holiest place in Judaism, or over other portions of Jerusalem. Israelis remember that after the 1948 division of Jerusalem following their war of independence, Jews were expelled from the old city, their cemeteries were desecrated and they were denied access to the Western Wall of the ancient temple. When East Jerusalem was recaptured by the Israelis in 1967, they vowed that Jerusalem would never again be divided.
For their part, the Palestinians still nurture the idea that they can return to the lands from which they were encouraged by their leaders to flee or were driven out by the Israelis -- depending on whose version of history you accept -- during the 1948 fighting.
But such a return -- by perhaps four million people -- could be achieved only by conquest. No Israeli government could consent because it would be suicidal. These are people who hate Israel and would do all they could to sabotage the Jewish state.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to peace is mistrust. Since the 1967 war, Israelis have been told they should exchange occupied lands for peace. But Israeli withdrawals have thus far not brought peace, and the conviction grows that the Arabs will not be satisfied until Israel is destroyed, regardless of any vows of peace.
After months of rioting and hundreds of deaths, the hostility between Israelis and Palestinians is as strong as it has ever been. In such an atmosphere and in the face of such intractable issues, peace is only a distant hope.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
Frank Bridgewater, Acting Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
