[Ip-health] Pelosi to Bush: Don't Increase Prices for Australian drug consumers

[Robert Weissman]

Lawmakers Press Bush on Sugar, Drugs in Australia Trade Talks

     Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Lawmakers pressed the Bush
administration to end its demand in trade negotiations with
Australia that the Canberra government stop subsidizing
pharmaceuticals, and to open the U.S. to more sugar imports.
     ``Key elements of the proposal appear designed to increase
drug prices in Australia,'' House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a
California Democrat, and eight other House Democrats wrote to Bush
last week. The proposals, if applied to the U.S., may undercut the
drug benefits of veterans and the elderly, and limit the ability of
Congress to expand drug benefits in the future, they said.
     The U.S. should also agree to allow unrestricted imports of
Australian sugar, another group of lawmakers wrote in a letter to
President George W. Bush, which was released today.
     The letters from more than two-dozen lawmakers show the
difficulty that the U.S. trade representative, Robert Zoellick,
will face in getting congressional approval for a trade deal with
Australia this election year.
     The administration is already facing a tough fight as
Democratic leaders and union organizers say they will defeat a
trade agreement reached last month with Central American nations.
     A ``sweet spot'' for getting the trade agreements approved by
Congress will come after the final presidential primaries in early
June and before the general election campaign heats up, said Scott
Miller, a lobbyist for Procter & Gamble Co., the largest U.S. maker
of household goods. In order to hit that spot, the U.S. and
Australia must agree to terms of the deal this month.
     The U.S. and Australia say they want to end trade barriers
between their nations, which were likely to have $20 billion in
cross-border commerce last year. Australian trade officials arrived
in Washington on Monday, and those talks are to continue through
next week, with Mark Vaile, the Australian trade minister, due in
Washington on Friday.

[snip]

                            Drugs

     Still, the drug issue may dominate the talks, because Vaile
has pledged not to negotiate away Australia's Pharmaceutical
Benefits Scheme and U.S. lawmakers are warning of the impact on
U.S. government policies.
     ``As a result of these negotiations, there is no way
Australians will be paying more for their drugs,'' Vaile said.
     Pelosi and other lawmakers said: ``Given that far too many
Americans cannot afford access to life-saving or life-prolonging
medicines, it is astounding that the United States may seek to
impose those shortcomings not only on Australia today but on the
rest of the world tomorrow.''
     Richard Mills, a spokesman for Zoellick, said the trade office
received the letters and ``is reviewing them.''