Why people should be able to buy drugs approved in other countries

"Because the FDA restricts the importing of drugs from overseas if a version is available domestically, patients are stuck with the new, expensive version"

They restrict the importing of drugs overseas because it takes around 3 billion and a decade to get a drug approved by the FDA. Drug companies also only have 7 years to make up the cost of the 3 billion (before the patent expires).

If they allowed the importing of drugs, overseas companies would just create generics based on all of the R&D the US company put into it and they would never be able to recoup their costs.

If you want cheaper drugs, make it cheaper to get FDA approval. This will also add more competing companies and market forces will push the prices down.