A three-state consortium, including Maine, that will negotiate lower prescription drug prices for Medicaid recipients is a help – the effort has already saved Maine $1 million. But to truly have buying power to push drug companies to lower prices, the federal government should do the negotiating.

The federal government already negotiates prices for medications for military personnel, veterans and some cancer patients, and every other developed country does so. However, Congress passed a Medicare reform that includes prescription drug coverage but forbids the federal government from negotiating lower drug prices.

Sen. Olympia Snowe has repeatedly introduced legislation that would give the health and human services secretary authority to negotiate lower drug prices for participants in the Medi-care program.

Earlier this year, the Senate approved an amendment to a budget resolution, sponsored by Sens. Snowe and Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, that would give the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services the authority to negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare participants. It is the only change to the Medicare reform act that has been approved by the Senate. But, although the amendment passed 54-44, because it is part of a budget resolution, it needs at least 60 votes to be enacted, a hurdle it is not likely to clear this year.

Instead, states are teaming up to buy drugs or to import them from Canada. Last week, the federal government approved the plan from Maine, Vermont and Iowa to pool their Medicaid drug orders. The Sovereign States Drug Consortium began buying drugs last November and has already saved Maine $1 million. Seven other states have their own drug-buying group.

Previously, states and cities bought lower-cost drugs from Canada for their employees and others. Reimportation, like state consortiums, is only a temporary solution. It makes no sense to sell drugs made by U.S. companies to Canada for a lower price (because their government negotiated a lower price) and then to import those drugs into the United States. It makes much more sense for the U.S. government to negotiate a lower price in the first place. That is what all other developed countries do.

It makes much more sense for the U.S. government to negotiate lower drug prices so states don’t have to.