The pharmaceutical industry "invested" millions of dollars in GOP campaigns in 2004 in the belief that their immense profits would diminish should Democrats take power. PhRMA's greatest fear: a prescription drug reimportation plan that would allow American consumers to pay the fair international price rather than an inflated domestic one. Now it appears that their investment might not pay off despite GOP wins. Bloomberg has the story:

Eight U.S. representatives and senators, including five Republicans, introduced a bill that would allow Americans to import cheaper drugs from Canada and other countries. Yesterday, Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine won a promise from Majority Leader Bill Frist for a hearing on their own proposal.

``We have for the first time people in the Senate and in the House who are on the same page,'' Representative Gil Gutknecht, the Minnesota Republican who wrote the House bill, said today at a press conference at the Capitol in Washington. ``This is a new day in this whole debate.''

Lawmakers are responding to pressure from voters and state governors dismayed by U.S. drug prices that are rising 10 percent a year, while governments in Canada and elsewhere keep prices as much as 70 percent lower. Ten governors, including four Republicans, last week wrote to Frist, a Tennessee Republican, urging passage of a drug-importation measure. [emphasis added]

The GOP is simply wrong on this issue. The Democrats know this. The American people know this. Even some Republicans know this. It's time for drug companies to stop bilking the American people, and if the President isn't willing to do anything about it, he and his party will be held to account in 2006.