> Undo the laws that prevent retailers from driving over the border themselves

It's cheaper elsewhere because those countries have set maximum prices. For instance, in Canada, the Patented Medicines Review Board sets maximum prices for pharmaceuticals.

I don't have any kind of philosophical opposition to importing medicines from Canada, but Canada has a practical objection: if we allowed these imports, it's very likely to cause drug import disruptions in Canada. Thus, Canada has asked the US not to do this. [1]

I think this is very likely a legitimate concern. The US is a much larger market, and a _much_ more lucrative market than Canada, since the US does not fix prices. If the US allowed imports from Canada, it's likely the pharmaceutical industry would stop selling to Canada at the rates set by the PMPRB. The industry would sooner miss-out on 100% of sales to Canada than have their pricing power in the US eroded.

Other than the anomaly of Covid vaccines, Pfizer actually has larger sales in the US than the entire rest of the world put together, which tells you something about how much the US is overpaying.

If the US wants to set maximum prices for drugs, and we have the votes to do that via importation, why in the world can't we just have our own Patented Medicines Review Board, rather than relying on Canada to set policy for the US?

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-pharmaceuticals-ex...

I'm curious what the legality would be on a communal trip of some sort. A lot like thr early days of medicinal Marijuana where individual patients would sign over their allotted plants to a caregiver. I wonder if there could be a coyote to use a perhaps not so great but applicable term for it. This coyote would collect a bunch or orders from folks, get the goods (insulin), bring it back.

Now that I've written this I realize that this person has a name, it's not coyote, it's drug trafficker. I'm leaving it because:

How shameful we are. A person whom would drive hundreds of miles to a foreign land to help people get basic medicine they need to survive is called a drug trafficker that is a felony. WTF America.

> Undo the laws that prevent retailers from driving over the border themselves

This is goofy, though. If it's the same product, there's a real reason it's more expensive here. It could be anything from excessive regulatory hurdles to a cash grab, but there's something wrong. Address the underlying issue.

Wouldn't it be much simpler for California to do this?

It would be far easier to regulate our prices to be the same as the average of say - Canada, the UK, Germany and Japan.

We’d pay less. They’d probably need to pay more. It’s utterly insane how we’re essentially subsidizing drug development for the entire world.

I think this is a backwards solution, or maybe you just dont think that regulation could happen. The price of importing goods would still raise the price beyond what other countries pay. And nothing about your solution guarantees that the prices in other countries stays low, pharma can change their prices on a whim. We can and should regulate the price of life saving medications, directly. We dont have to treat the symptom.