- As he criticizes US prescription drug prices, Democrats say Republican Mike Rogers voted against allowing cheaper imports from Canada
- As a member of the US House, Rogers voted at least four times against drug reimportation proposals that aimed to lower costs
- Rogers supported separate legislation to allow access to more generics
Republican US Senate candidate Mike Rogers says he’ll make sure Michiganders don’t pay more than Canadians for prescription drugs, but Democrat Abdul El-Sayed claims Rogers repeatedly voted against a potential solution to that problem.
“Rogers voted 4x against importing cheaper drugs from Canada” when he served in the US House, according to a viral ad campaign by El-Sayed.
A review by Bridge Michigan found the claim is largely true, although only three of the votes cited by El-Sayed were directly related to prescription drug imports. Opposing a similar bill, Rogers said he was worried it would allow access to counterfeit drugs.
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El-Sayed has made Rogers’ ties to the pharmaceutical industry a talking point in his campaign messaging. During Rogers’ unsuccessful 2024 campaign for US Senate, his record of supporting increased opioid access came under scrutiny.
Claims that Rogers voted against importing cheaper prescription drugs from Canada are among many that Bridge Michigan is fact checking ahead of the Nov. 3 election, including how El-Sayed plans to fund his proposed Medicare for All plan. The winner of the US Senate race will succeed retiring Democrat Gary Peters.
The claims
In a recent ad, standing near the Detroit River with Windsor in the background, Rogers noted that prescription drugs are more expensive in Michigan than in Canada.
“It has to stop,” he said. “Our healthcare system is broken. Send me to Washington, DC, and I’ll make sure our healthcare is more affordable. I’ll make sure you don’t have to pay any more for your prescription than they do in Canada.”
El-Sayed responded with an online video accusing Rogers of opposing solutions to problems he is now vowing to fix, including multiple votes against proposals to allow pharmacists to reimport drugs from countries like Canada.
Democratic US Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who defeated Rogers in the 2024 election, criticized Rogers for voting against prescription drug reimportation: “Watch what Mike has done when he had the job, not what he says now,” she wrote on social media.
Prescription drugs that are manufactured in the US are regularly sold to consumers in countries like Canada for less money than in the US. Reimportation would permit US pharmacists to purchase prescription drugs from sellers in Canada that were originally manufactured in the US and sell them for a lower cost to US consumers.
In 2017, the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated a law to allow drug reimportation from Canada could save the US between $1 billion to $1.5 billion annually. In 2024, the nonpartisan RAND Corporation found that US prescription drug prices are 229% higher than Canada’s.
The votes
The fine print on El-Sayed’s video cites four specific votes that Rogers took between 2001 and 2003. Bridge analyzed each:
- HR 2330 in 2001: Rogers voted against an amendment proposed by then-US Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that would have allowed prescription drugs to be reimported back into the US by prescription drug distributors and pharmacists. He later voted for a separate amendment to loosen rules for Americans to import prescription drugs for personal use.
- HR 2427 of 2003: Rogers voted against the proposed Pharmaceutical Market Access Act of 2003, a Republican-sponsored measure to allow
- the reimporting of prescription drugs to the US.
- HR 2673 in 2003: Rogers voted against a motion for an appropriations bill that would have instructed members of the House to push to include a section allowing prescription drug reimportation.
- HR 1 in 2003: During a debate over creation of Medicare Part D, Rogers voted against a motion to instruct committee members to allow the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices. He later voted for the final version of Medicare Part D, which allowed prescription drugs to be imported back into the US, but only if they were certified safe by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, which didn’t happen.
Rogers also voted against a 2007 drug reimportation bill that wasn’t cited in the El-Sayed ad. The proposal passed the House despite opposition from President George W. Bush’s administration, which had reportedly warned that there was no system in place to protect consumers from counterfeit or unsafe drugs.
“I understand the intention to lower drug prices to the seniors, that is critically important,” Rogers said at the time. “What we’re doing is throwing open the gates to every (drug) counterfeiter in the world.”
Separately, Rogers later supported legislation that aimed to reduce prescription drug prices by allowing more access to generic drugs.
Asked about his history of voting against drug reimportation proposals, Rogers’ spokesperson Alyssa Brouillet criticized Democrats, saying they are “in total disarray because Michiganders know Abdul will bankrupt Medicare, raise their taxes 4x, and take away their doctor,” repeating claims about El-Sayed’s Medicare for All proposal.
“Mike Rogers will make healthcare more affordable, including by lowering prescription drug prices—and he has the record to prove it. In Congress, Mike championed Medicare Part D to support over 1.2 million Michigan seniors,” she said.
El-Sayed campaign spokesperson Cole Wozniak argued Rogers’ opposition to prescription drug reimportation proposals were part of a pattern of votes “to keep drug prices high.” He also touted El-Sayed’s record as public health director for Detroit and Wayne County.
Bottom line
While Rogers was a member of Congress, he voted at least four times against bills, motions, or amendments that would have permitted the reimportation of prescription drugs into the US from countries like Canada.
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