Senate Puppeticians Vote Down Amendment to Allow Sale of Cheaper Canadian Drugs
/During Wednesday night’s Senate session, more than a dozen Democrats voted against an amendment that would have allowed pharmacists to import drugs from Canada—often at a fraction of the cost paid in the U.S. The amendment was proposed by Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders.
Sen. Bernie Sanders: "We are the only major country not to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. So you can walk into a drugstore today, and the price could be double or three times what you paid a year ago, and there is no law to stop them. They can and they will raise prices as high as the market will allow. And if people die as a result of that, not a problem for them. People get sick, not a problem for them."
Among the 13 Democrats who voted against Sanders’s amendment was New Jersey’s Cory Booker, who earlier on Wednesday testified against Sen. Jeff Sessions’s nomination to become attorney general. Campaign filings show Sen. Booker received more than a quarter-million dollars in campaign funds from pharmaceutical companies between 2010 and 2016.
