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LOS
ANGELES, Sept. 30 - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed
several bills on Thursday that would have made the state the
middleman in large-scale consumer purchases of prescription
drugs from Canada.
Mr. Schwarzenegger said the bills were illegal under federal
law and did not have adequate provisions to ensure the
safety of imported medicine. He said he was addressing the
high cost of medications by negotiating directly with
pharmaceutical companies to win discounts for the estimated
four million low-income Californians who do not have
prescription drug coverage.
In his veto message on the main bill, which would have set
up a state-run Web site to help consumers find discount
drugs in Canada, the Republican governor told the
Democratic-controlled Legislature that such measures
"oversimplify the complex safety, trade, supply and pricing
issues involved in the marketplace." He said he shared the
sponsors' concerns about high drug prices and pledged to
introduce legislation next year that would enshrine in law
his approach to lowering costs for the state's poorest
residents.
Mr. Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill on the last possible day
for acting on hundreds of measures sent to him at the end of
this year's legislative session. He vetoed 71 bills on
Thursday alone and 273 of 844 sent to him at the end of the
session, the highest rate of vetoes by a California governor
in at least a decade.
The sponsors of the drug import bills had hoped to make
California a leader in the nationwide movement to drive down
the cost of prescription drugs by allowing consumers to buy
them directly from Canada, where their prices are 30 percent
to 60 percent lower than in the United States.
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