The Senate will continue debate Monday afternoon on a popular suggestion to allow U.S. citizens to purchase cheaper drugs from distant countries, which led to a last-minute lobbying push by drug makers last week and bogged down discussions over a heath-care improvement bill.
The offer is one of numerous intense disputes that provoked a surge in lobbying by hospitals, insurers and other major industries attempting to persuade the legislation in their favor as lawmakers work through a handful of difficult issues. Medical providers, for example, are battling hard against a planned Democratic concession that would jettison a public insurance option in favor of a limited development of Medicare, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce flew dozens of corporate executives to Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers.
The fight over the imported drugs pitch poses a predominantly difficult biased challenge for President Obama, who co-sponsored a similar bill when he was in Congress and who included support for the idea in his first budget.
But the pharmaceutical industry — which has been a key follower of health-care reform after getting an agreement with the White House earlier this year — has responded with a severe lobbying campaign aimed at killing the suggestion, focusing on Democratic senators from states with large drug and investigate sectors.
