The final vote was 51-48 with 60 votes needed for passage.
Democrats who voted against Drug Re-Importation were:
akaka, baucus, burris, bayh, cantwell, carper, carden, casey, durbin, gillibrand, hagan, inouye, kauffman, kerry, kirk, landrieu, lautenberg, levin, lieberman, menendez, mikulski, murray, reed, reid, rockefeller, schumer, udall CO,tester, warner & whitehouse
An administration-backed "killer amendment" sponsored by Senator Lautenberg was voted on also but it is totally a sham. The Dorgan Amendment to HCR would allow drug-reimportation from a few certain western countries with verifiable chain-of-command similar to ours. Presently Americans pay the R&D costs for the entire world through drug prices that are often 10 times that in Europe or Canada.
Barrack Obama was a co-sponsor of the drug re-importation bill in the past. But now the phony concern is that "counterfeit" drugs may enter the US (which has nothing to do with a legal re-importation process).
One of the last few possible benfits to consumers that may have been in the HCR is about to go down. It would have saved consumers $80 Billion and the government $20 Billion. In the past it was Repugs that opposed legal drug re-importation, now it's Democrats who are scared of offending big Pharma and it's deal with the administration. Democratic senators are lining up one after another to speak of their concerns that phoney drugs might sneak into the US.
AARP, the powerful seniors' group that supports drug importation, has notified senators that it will keep close track of votes on the Dorgan amendment and will use the tally in its rankings of senior-friendly lawmakers. AARP Senior Vice President David Sloane said Friday that the legislation "would create a system for safe, legal importation of prescription drugs from abroad" and would help lower drug costs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
The Washington Post has a story today about the tremendous lobbying Pharma has been doing in the past few days to kill re-importation. (John McCain says they have 650 full-time lobbyists in Washington).
The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), would allow pharmacies and wholesalers to import U.S.-approved medication from Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, where drug costs are far lower because of price controls. The measure has attracted bipartisan support from lawmakers, including Sens. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).
But the pharmaceutical industry -- which has been a key supporter of health-care reform after reaching an agreement with the White House earlier this year -- has responded with a fierce lobbying campaign aimed at killing the proposal, focusing on Democratic senators from states with large drug and research sectors.
In addition, Margaret A. Hamburg, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, raised safety concerns about the Dorgan amendment in a letter to the Senate, warning that the agency is unable to ensure that such drug imports would not be counterfeited or contaminated. The FDA has cited such concerns for more than a decade, repeatedly rebuffing attempts by Congress to allow prescription drug imports
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
For those unfamiliar with the deal with Pharma made last summer:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The vote was just after 7pm est. This may be the most critical vote to show who is really for reform and who is a cynical tool of the health industry.
Recs appreciated as there's no coverage of this critical vote yet. Votes on Dorgan's amendment clearly show who can be trusted and is honest.
UPDATE:HuffPo is reporting that debate on health care was delayed for several days because Dorgan originally had the 60 votes needed to pass. A deal was made, and ratified on the floor verbally, that in return for "No" votes on Drug Re-Importation, the House-Senate Conference will add a provision to HCR closing the Medicare "donut hole" by 2019. (This would still mean taxpayers will be paying the outlandish drug prices). Evidently "ping-pong" is off the table now.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...