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Citizen Agenda: An Update For Members Of CoPIRG

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New Voters Project Successful In Its Return


	NEW VOTERS PROJECT —CoPIRG student chapters helped run events to register new voters and encourage students to get out and vote. Across the country the state PIRGs registered 75,000 voters for 2006 elections.

After successful campaigns to sign up new voters in 2004 and 2005, the New Voters Project again made efforts to sign up young voters and encourage civic values throughout Colorado.

Focusing on college campuses, our staff and volunteers contacted nearly 10,000 new voters, registering some and getting others to pledge to vote on Election Day.

The New Voters Project is a nonpartisan effort to register young people and get them to the polls on Election Day. The goal of the project is to get more people to participate in the democratic process, to get political leaders to pay attention to young people and their issues, and to demonstrate that young people are a viable constituency that can be mobilized using tried and true techniques.

Canadian Rx Drug Importing Allowed
Americans will soon be able to legally buy safe and low-cost prescription drugs from Canada, thanks to the efforts of Sen. David Vitter (La.) and others who added prescription drug reimportation language to the Homeland Security bill.

The bill passed both houses of Congress and was signed by the president in October. The victory is a small step, however, toward reining in the high price of prescription drugs.

The bill allows Americans to buy a 90-day supply of prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies.

Advocates were not able to overcome industry opposition to Internet and mail-order sales of Canadian drugs, which would help the majority of Americans who cannot make the trip to Canada for prescription drugs. These sales are still prohibited.

The Department of Homeland Security had come under some fire for confiscating critical medications from seniors who, faced with choosing between needed medications and other essential purchases, opted to import their prescription drugs from Canada.

Customs agents seized and destroyed at least 40,000 prescription drug packages at the border before backing down and stopping the seizures in September.

Advocates will build on momentum from this victory to get Congress to leverage better prices from the powerful pharmaceutical industry, including the PIRG-backed Medicare Prescription Drugs Saving and Choice Act (HR 752), which would allow Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices with manufacturers.

Uninsured Are “Paying The Price” For Prescriptions
Uninsured Americans pay 60 percent more for prescription drugs compared with the prices negotiated by the federal government, according to a new CoPIRG report: “Paying the Price, The High Cost of Prescription Drugs for Uninsured Americans.” The report surveyed costs in Denver and 34 other cities across the nation.

“Politicians have focused on the high cost of prescription drugs for senior citizens, but this report shows that when millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans go it alone at the drugstore, they pay the price,” said Rex Wilmouth, director of CoPIRG.

CoPIRG is taking this research to fuel the debate as we call for a multi-state drug buying pool, which would allow the uninsured to negotiate together for better prescription drug prices.

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