For years, politicians on both sides of the aisle have been saying that prescription

drug prices in the U.S. are too high high and that Americans should be able to buy

them from our neighbor to the north, Canada. We can import lettuce and tomato

vegetables from farms all over the world.

But somehow we cannot re-import from Canada brand name prescription drugs.

In epipen in the United States of America is $646. It's $120 in Canada.

The problem is they're too high in America and that you can go right across the border and get drugs

for a fraction of the cost that they cost us here in America. But despite all that

interest there have been a lot of barriers to getting drugs from Canada.

Until last week.

Here's our colleague Liz Esley White.

For the first time, the United States is going to allow the importation of drugs from Canada,

and Florida is the state that gets to do this first.

Florida officials say the new plan could save the state $180 million

in just the first year.

And there's hope that Florida is the start of a change in how Americans buy

prescription drugs. This does for the first time open the door for this idea

period. You know there are other states that are lining up to try this and it's a big policy

shift for the US.

But there are a lot of barriers to this particular program actually getting implemented.

Welcome to the journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Jessica Mendoza.

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