Cutting out the Canadian middle-man

The Senate today voted down an amendment which would have allowed for the re-importation of medications from Canada, where price controls keep consumer costs down (at the expense of shareholder profits or ongoing research, depending on your source).  Sen. John McCain lamented the failure of the bill and blamed it on lobbying by pharmaceutical companies.

I prefer to think that it failed because it's a stupid policy.  Why would we set up a system where drugs are shipped to Canada, sold to a re-importer at a cheaper price because of price controls, and then shipped back here?  We could just put in price controls here and save on shipping.  There's precedent for price controls, which were put into place under noted socialist Richard Milhouse Nixon.  McCain and his supporters, including Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, need to drop the fig leaf (make that "maple leaf") of Canadian price controls and just advocate price controls here at home, if that's their goal.