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The following excerpt is from an op-ed that first appeared in MedPage Today on February 24th, 2024.
If you head to the Florida beaches for spring break, you will notice that the Canadian Maple Leaf is often present among the flags outside hotels and tourist apartments. The benefit to Florida from the annual migration of snowbirds from the North has long been evident, but now something more unusual may be coming from Canada.
On January 5, the FDA approved (with conditions) a request from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R.-Fla.) to import prescription drugs from Canada, making Florida the first state ever given authority to import prescription drugs from another country. The Florida Medicaid program is likely hard at work now devising a plan to source large quantities of drugs from Canada, where unit prices are often small fractions of the U.S. list price.
This unprecedented plan begs many questions: Why is it happening in the first place? Who will benefit from or be harmed by this practice? Could it spread to other U.S. states?
Read the entire op-ed here.
Author
Mark V. Pauly, PhD
Bendheim Professor Emeritus, Health Care Management, Wharton School; Professor, Economics, School of Arts and Sciences
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