Heard of the bill that would allow "cheap" pharmaceuticals to be imported from nations that impose price controls on drugs? Those price controls explain why the imported drugs are "cheap." More costly is the resulting future in which less pharmaceutical and medical innovation is undertaken because price controls reduce the returns to such investment.

The importation of foreign drugs subject to price controls is no more a manifestation of "free trade" than the purchase of stolen merchandise from a fence is "free enterprise."

But this is an election year, and such considerations are swamped by the competition for votes.

So we have a prominent bill sponsored by Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, that, if passed and signed into law, would require the Food and Drug Administration to set up for personal use an importation system from Canada within three months of enactment and one from European and other developed countries within a year. This bill has also received the endorsement of AARP, the senior citizens lobby.

The election-year sound bite? Lower drug costs with no adverse effects upon safety or future drug development.

This is pure fantasy. The reality is that the Dorgan-Snowe bill would import foreign price controls into the United States, by forcing U.S. pharmaceutical producers to sell unlimited amounts of drugs to foreign governments at their controlled prices precisely for importation back into the United States. Profiteering "middlemen" bfiteering "middlemen" - both in Canada and the United States - obviously would increase the "resale" price for American consumers.

Moreover, generic drugs are not cheaper overseas, and they account for a substantial and growing part of the U.S. market.

The importation regulatory process, seemingly so simple, inexorably will metastasize, and no drugs or other magic bullets will be available to stop yet another massive expansion in federal power. Unlike many other federal intrusions, which "merely" make people poorer, this one will affect medical innovation profoundly.

Plus, the advocates of price-controlled importation are rather casual in their assertion that the safety of foreign drugs can be assured through a "chain-of-custody" requirement that is a federally mandated paperwork trail.

The reality is that the FDA will not be able to police the shipments, cross shipments, reverse shipments, false documentation and other machinations that counterfeiters will adopt when U.S. law facilitates drug importation.

The central problem is that "chain-of-custody" requirements by their very nature cannot be self-enforcing, and the potential profits to be earned from illicit activity are enormous. Moreover, it is inevitable that importation from advanced economies in Europe and Asia will follow importation from Canada.

That is the not-so-glorious future promised by the Dorgan-Snowe bill. Less investment and innovation. Poorer human health outcomes. A vastly bigger bureaucracy. Far less than advertised for consumers in terms of price reductions.

Once again, a great bargain brought to you by your federal government.