ended that ‘de minimis’ rule<\/a> last year, saying it was a loophole exploited by criminals to ship contraband into the U.S.<\/p>\nThe latest implementation of the policy means around 2.3 million Americans could lose how they get their medicine.<\/p>\n
Now all international goods will face fees and stricter requirements before coming into the country.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s concentrated amongst the lower income Americans who might not have health insurance, who find that this is a route to get, you know, cheap drugs that they otherwise might not be able to afford,” University of Michigan-Flint economics professor Chris Douglas said of the policy’s impact.<\/p>\n
The rules apply to all international imports, not just Canadian drugs.<\/p>\n
However, advocates worry it could make mailing prescriptions much more difficult, or even impossible and disproportionately impact the Midwest.<\/p>\n
“Probably people in the Great Lakes states might be importing more just because of the proximity,” Douglas said.<\/p>\n
According to him, many of our imports from Canada come from auto parts and lumber, not medicine.<\/p>\n
While the number of Americans who look outside the country for their medicine may be relatively low, some depend on those items.<\/p>\n
One study from the Campaign for Personal Prescription Importation cited the blood thinner Eliquis nearly doubling in cost when purchased inside the U.S. instead of from Canada.<\/p>\n
“It might be misleading to say, well, prescription drug importation is a small component of trade with Canada,” Douglas said. “There\u2019s going to be a big distributional impact.\u201d<\/p>\n
The customs rule follows a major ban on spirits, dairy products and other imports from Canada just weeks ago and a 50% tariff placed on other goods over the summer.<\/p>\n
Democrats and some Republicans oppose the changes.<\/p>\n
More than 70 lawmakers sent letters to CBP and the FDA asking for clarification or to pause the new customs rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KALAMAZOO, Mich. \u2014 Starting next week, cheaper prescription prices could be out of reach for millions of Americans.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":879557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[97,243],"class_list":["post-879556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}