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According to the Governor's office, Montana government spends just over $100-million dollars on prescription drugs every year, and now Governor Schweitzer says that he has an idea about how to cut that down to $60-million.

Schweitzer sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services recently, requesting a Medicaid waiver that would allow the state of Montana to import prescription drugs from Canada.

Schweitzer says the imports would help Montanans covered by Medicaid and Montana's CHIP program.

Back in 1999, when his political career was just beginning, Schweitzer took busloads of senior citizens across the border to get cheaper medications.

Now he's saying it's about time Montana has a real solution to the high cost of drugs, and stated, "How is it that the place of the greatest capitalists in the world, the greatest business people in the world, the people with the greatest business, and the finest business schools on the planet...how is it that we negotiate to pay twice and three times as much as all of these countries around the world, many of them are socialists."

Schweitzer says the high cost of prescription drugs can be fixed in Washington, but until that happens Montana must find a cheaper way to keep its citizens healthy.