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The Times reports that for seniors with certain levels of medical expenses, the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan will save significant amounts of money, but many other seniors find the best deals by purchasing Canada prescription drugs.

• Many seniors have not signed up for the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan because they find it too confusing.
• Many seniors are willing to risk paying a penalty for not joining the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan by the enrollment deadline of May 15, 2006 because they are believe they save more money without the program.
• While Medicare spokespeople say they are on track with expected numbers of seniors enrolling in the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan, the Kaiser Foundation reports that if more healthy seniors do not sign up the program could be in trouble, causing premiums to go up and some insurance companies to opt-out.
• Seniors who benefit most from the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan are those who spend between $1,500 and $3,000 per year, or more than $6,400 per year.
• Some seniors purchase the cheapest Medicare Prescription Drug Plan policy they can find to cover themselves in case of catastrophic medication expenses, but continue to purchase Canada prescription drugs day-to-day.
• Many other seniors have consciously chosen not to join the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan because they prefer to purchase Canada prescription drugs, which save them more money.
• About half of the estimated $1.5 billion in foreign drugs that are imported into the U.S. each year come from Canada.
• Seniors who benefit most from buying International prescription drugs are those who spend either less than $1,500, or between $3,000 and $6,400 each year.

This is for the 14 million seniors who, like me, have chronic illness and no prescription drug coverage. Bush's heralded Medicare Drug Benefit will do little but transfer almost a trillion dollars from our pockets to the insurance and drug companies. Unfortunately, it doesn't go into effect until next January. Only then will seniors discover how they've been duped. In the meantime, and after, millions of us must continue to look North if we're to afford both food and medicine.

Here's the scoop: 

After investigating several Canadian pharmacies, my wife and I paid $624.77 for a three-month supply of drugs at an online Vancouver registered pharmacy. These same drugs cost us $1,208.04 buying at Walgreen's, Target, and Kmart where we shopped for the lowest prices.

That's a saving of $583.27 which includes a Canadian physician's rewriting your doctor's prescriptions — required by Canuck law — personal consultations, and shipping.

Chances are, you‘ll save 25 to 80 percent buying your drugs in Canada.

There are big savings to be had across the board. A 100-day supply of Celebrex 200 mg is $151 in Canada, about $262 at your corner drug store. Nexium is $240 (112 pills) there, $380 (90 pills) here. Lipitor 20 mg (90) is $174 there, $290 here. Have your doctor write 40 mg Lipitor, cut them in half, and save 180 bucks.

There is nothing illegal about buying drugs in Canada. (See below.) For years, Americans have been driving across the border to buy prescription drugs at lower government-regulated Canadian prices.

Now, Canadian drugstores are marketing mail-order drugs directly, offering anyone in the US with a valid US prescription the benefits of Canadian price controls. As of September, 2005, over two million American seniors — 33 percent more than in 2003 — are taking advantage of these huge savings.
 

Here's how it works. For current prices, either call or visit the Web sites [see below] of some of the many reputable Canadian drug stores offering this service. Since each store has different prices as well as varying shipping costs, etc., comparisons can be tricky. Most, however, end up within a few dollars of one another.

Once you decide on a druggist, simply fax your prescriptions for a 90-day supply, renewable in three months. In my case, a doctor then called and reviewed each script with me. Furnish your credit card number and you'll have your drugs in a week. At an average of at least 40 percent off what you have been paying her. Services vary. Some charge for shipping, some don't. You can get automatic refills for up to a year. And prices are in US dollars. This has become a very competitive business with over a billion dollars changing hands across the border last year. I'd suggest that you pick two or three pharmacies from the list below, compare prices, and order.

That's all there is to it. Though certainly not a long-term solution to many older Americans' inability to afford essential medication, this may help some of you as a stopgap. It's certainly a Godsend to me and my wife.

NOTE AS OF DECEMBER 2006: Because there are absolutely no market restraints on name-brand drugs (and generics are being held back by both the FDA and drug company payoffs to generic companies), Canada is still cheaper than the US than the average Plan D coverage. The FDA and Customs has stopped completely their harassment and interception of imported pharmaceuticals.

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Under pressure from Congress, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials scrapped their 11-month-old policy of seizing prescription drugs imported through the mail from Canada.
 

The practice, implemented last November, had come under fire from lawmakers for depriving tens of thousands of American seniors of their drugs and protecting the high prices charged by U.S. pharmaceutical companies. Lynn Hollinger, a Customs spokeswoman, said the seizures would stop Oct. 9 but declined to explain the policy reversal. "We're going back to operating procedures prior to November 2005," she said.

Although most prescription-drug importations are illegal under U.S. law, Customs had long turned a blind eye to small mail orders coming across the border from Canada, before launching the new policy of seizures late last year.

Prescription drugs are significantly cheaper in Canada because its national health-care system negotiates lower prices for its citizens. The U.S., by contrast, is one of the only markets in the world where the government doesn't exercise control over drug prices.

As a result, pharmaceutical companies earn the bulk of their profits in the U.S. market. Imports from Canada, which have surged in the past six years with the rise of online pharmacies, have been a sore point with drug makers. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America has argued that drugs imported from Canada are unsafe because they haven't been vetted by the Food and Drug Administration.

Upon learning that Customs would stop the seizures, Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the industry trade group, said he was disappointed with the policy reversal. "We're adamantly opposed to any importation schemes. Fake drugs are a very serious problem that is real and growing."

As of mid-July, Customs had seized more than 37,000 prescription-drug packages from Canada. The agency declined to say how many more packages its agents have seized since then.

Congressional pressure had been building against the seizures. At the behest of Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs was investigating the new Customs policy.

"This is a huge victory," Mr. Nelson said. "For nearly a year, the White House has been punishing seniors for filling their prescriptions at lower Canadian prices. Now it looks like the government is getting out of the business of harassing these consumers."

Last week, Congress sent President Bush a Homeland Security appropriations bill that includes an amendment barring Customs agents from preventing persons from re-entering the U.S. from Canada with a 90-day supply of medicine. The amendment excluded packages sent by mail, but it represented a significant breach in the tight alliance between Republicans and the drug industry, which remains a major source of financial support for House and Senate campaigns.

Dan McLaughlin, a spokesman for Mr. Nelson, said the senator believes the seizures were politically motivated to bolster enrollments in Medicare Part D, the new drug benefit for seniors that took effect last January, and wants the Senate investigation to be completed.

Copyright © 2006 THE WALL ST. JOURNAL

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DISGUSTED WITH PLAN D? CONGRESS SUGGESTS PLAN C

by Frank Kaiser
Editor Suddenly Senior

This week all across The Hill, Congressmen and women ponder the question: Which is more important, thousands of elderly constituents unable to get life-saving drugs guaranteed under Medicare's Plan D or thousands of dollars in legal bribes from the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies?  The conflict was inevitable.

Allow Big Pharma to write a 700-page bill that no one in Congress read before passing. Add Republican ideology to privatize Medicare, one of the most successful government programs ever. Mix with a blindly politicized Department of Health and Human Services, and you have a recipe for the most expensive government fiasco in this country's history.

Result? Today while hundreds of thousands of low-income seniors now scramble for medicines they normally get without cost or question, and with some 20 states forced to declare health emergencies, Congress still doesn't have a clue.

Plan D's “free market solution” was supposed to be win-win for everyone.

Insurance and drug companies stood to get hundreds of billions in windfall profits. Congressional coffers overflowed with grateful “donations.”

To this day, my wife and I buy our pharmaceuticals abroad, now from advertisers. I (and many Suddenly Senior readers) have found each to not only be a place of great savings but of folks who are helpful, kind, and caring.  So as your Congressman and senators ponder what to do about Plan D, I sincerely suggest that you do what saves you, and your country, big money. Voting with your pocketbook may be the only vote you have that still counts.