When will states be able to import drugs? And what state will next join the bandwagon? 

This weekend at the National Governors Assocation’s winter meeting in Washington, D.C., I spoke to three of the four governors who have been working with the Trump administration to import drugs from Canada: Democrats Jared Polis of Colorado and Janet Mills of Maine, and Republican Phil Scott of Vermont. They each insisted they were marching ahead with their plans, but also emphasized that they need to wait for the government’s approval. None could give me a firm timeline as to when they expect to hear back from the feds.

“We’d love to see this have happened last month, yesterday,” Mills told me. “I don’t foresee it happening any time soon. … We’re ready to go, waiting for the FDA, waiting for the president, for the administration to give it the green light.” Mills added that the administration has not given her any timeline for when they might approve the request. 

And if you’re betting on what state might be next to try importation, you might want to put some money on Utah. The state’s Republican governor, Gary Herbert, is fired up about the issue. So much so that when I asked him about it, he volunteered that he was talking about the idea on the plane ride to Washington. He told me he’d like for his state to submit an importation plan to President Trump. A spokesperson for Herbert, however, later clarified that the state’s “interest is a lot more preliminary than actually submitting a request to HHS.” Utah has already been sending state workers to Mexico to pick up their own cheaper prescription drugs. 

Of the governors I spoke with on Saturday, Herbert was the most enthusiastic about drug importation, although a few others seemed open to the idea as well. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California told me that he was “by definition” interested in the idea, though when I pressed him on whether the state would submit a plan, he pivoted to existing initiatives that California is already pursuing, like making its own generic drugs. Arizona’s Republican Governor Doug Ducey seemed open to the idea as well, although he wouldn’t get into specifics. “Whatever we can do to lower drug prices and bring market forces is a good idea,” Ducey told me in a very brief interview.

And Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Tom Wolf had perhaps my favorite answer of the day. When I asked him if he supported importation, this was his response: “Yeah, sure.”