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We've had a long wrangle with the pharmaceutical industry about parallel imports, and what we were saying is we want to make medicines and drugs as affordable as a possible to what is largely a poor population.

Imports create competition and keep domestic industry more responsive to consumers. In the United States, we import everything consumers want. So why not pharmaceuticals?

While American taxes pay for much of the research and development that goes into creating the new, life-saving drugs, American consumers continue to subsidize the cost of the drugs for consumers across the world.

I've always considered making it legal for Americans to import their prescription drugs a free-trade issue. Imports create competition and keep domestic industry more responsive to consumers.

When in some communities selling drugs is so lucrative that that's a pretty big enticement that we have to break down. Part of that is by making opportunities and paying decent wages.

Brand-name drugs have no competition, since the government grants them very long, exclusive marketing rights.

While I recognize the great value and importance of prescription drugs and strongly support a continued U.S. focus on pharmaceutical research and development, our nation's seniors cannot be asked to subsidize the drug costs of other wealthy industrialized nations any longer.

In every country except - industrial country except the United States, the government uses its massive purchasing power to negotiate drug prices. That's one of the reasons prices are so much higher in the United States than in other countries.

The United States is the only advanced country that permits the pharmaceutical industry to charge exactly what the market will bear, whatever it wants.

If Americans could legally access prescription drugs outside the United States, then drug companies would be forced to re-evaluate their pricing strategy.