What's happening?

The Oregon legislature is working through a number of bills to lower healthcare costs which is important, as healthcare costs are a challenge across Oregon. Of all the proposals being discussed, one of them sacrifices safety to achieve cost savings: foreign drug importation. There are three bills which purport to get medicine from Canada: HB2680, HB2689, and SB 409.

There's no magical extra supply of medicine in Canada, a country of 36 million people, that can be had by America, a country of more than 300 million people. However fake Canadian pharmacies have proliferated for years online, and will attempt to supply Oregon with medicine from unregulated third party countries if these proposals pass.

In this video, mom Carrie Luther talks about losing her son to a counterfeit medicine and why she opposes going outside the secured FDA-approved supply chain. PSM urges policymakers to focus only on health care reforms that do not sacrifice safety, it is too great a danger that's already killing Americans.