Senate confirms Medicare nominee

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said his decision to allow the confirmation of Mark McClellan to be the director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services early Friday will pave the way for the Senate to pass a drug reimportation law this year.

Dorgan had held up McClellan's nomination because of his opposition as Federal Drug Administration commissioner to allowing the reimportation of prescription drugs from other countries. Late Thursday, Dorgan removed his hold on the nomination, and said Friday that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., assured him that Congress would consider ways to allow safe reimportation.

"I think Sen. Frist understands that the ground is shifting," Dorgan said, noting that Sens. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, recently changed their positions and now support reimportation.

Frist aides, however, downplayed the importance of the agreement and said Frist promised Dorgan only that a reimportation bill would "more or less go through regular order." He did not secure a pledge for a vote or a date certain. "He got promised a process," an aide said.

But Friday Dorgan said with the cooperation of Frist, "we'll solve this in the Congress." And he said that Frist's agreement to consider the issue was a significant shift that will "inevitably lead" to changes in law to permit the reimportation of pharmaceuticals.

During a speech Friday before the Consumer Federation of America, McClellan said he looked forward to working with the Congress as the new CMS chief, and reiterated his position that FDA would need additional resources and authority to ensure that reimportation is safe. McClellan said a reimportation task force will consider ways to do that. Dorgan said that Congress would move forward regardless of the findings of the task force.

"I'm not pinning my hopes on the task force," he said.