Key points of Vox’s defense of Booker:
1. Senators generally vote based on their state’s interests rather than national sentiment. (Maybe because they want to keep their jobs.)
2. A decrease in local news coverage nationwide has led to increasing focus on national issues.
3. Because NJ has a major pharma and Wall Street presence, their politicians are going to appear “in the pockets” of those industries to a greater degree than reps from states without those influences.
-Not mentioned in the article is the fact that 97.5% of his contributions from “Wall Street” are from individuals who just work for financial firms. (This was true of Hillary too. Detractors seemed unaware or unfazed by this fact.)

Other points possibly worth consideration:
-A 2007 report from the Journal of Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management notes that “Canadians oppose legalization of reimportation in the US as it could exacerbate the problem of medication shortage in Canada.” The same report notes, “While these drugs are manufactured in the US, the storage and packaging conditions in countries where drugs were exported cannot be monitored by the FDA.”

Consumer Reports has a great and very detailed study on the prescription drugs issue. They do advocate for “limited importation of drugs from legitimate Canadian and European sources,” but there’s not a lot of detail on what “limited” or “legitimate” mean. They also say that the government should:
-Set a limit on out-of-pocket costs.
-Approve more generic versions of common drugs.
-Use government’s existing “march-in” rights: If there is a problem with the public’s access to a drug (a supply shortage or an exorbitant price), and if a drug was developed using taxpayer money, the Department of Health and Human Services has the right to force the company to allow another manufacturer to make generic versions that are cheaper for the consumer.