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ACT NOW: Encourage Drug Companies to Resist Temptation
June 4, 2004, Volume 4, Issue 22Ouch!
In establishing the new Medicare-approved drug discount card program, the government created political cover for pharmaceutical companies to erode their patient assistance programs. These programs—lifelines for low-income patients and public relations coups for high-profit drug companies—could now quietly dissolve by giving way to the new Medicare discount cards.
We know in practice that the savings from a Medicare-approved discount card fall short of those from a patient assistance program. Patient assistance programs (listed at www.needymeds.com) can provide people with low incomes, no drug coverage and nowhere else to turn with free or extremely-low-cost supplies of needed medicines. Special drug discount cards offered by major pharmaceutical companies (listed at www.medicarerights.org/rxchart2.html) also offer deep discounts on drugs. In contrast, Medicare-approved drug discount cards will generally offer only 10 to 17 percent savings on certain drugs.
Observation of www.needymeds.com and pharmaceutical company websites guardedly suggests that most patient assistance programs may remain intact in the near future. A disappointing exception to this trend, however, is the impending end of the Pfizer Share Card. Since January 2002, the Pfizer Share Card has permitted individuals with low incomes to get 30-day supplies of Pfizer drugs for a flat fee of $15. The company hails the success of its Share Card in a battery of reports, videos and promotions. Yet on August 31, 2004, Pfizer intends to pull the plug on the over 560,000 Share Card holders. “Through its participation in the [Medicare-approved] U Share Prescription Drug Discount Card,” Pfizer professes that it will “continue its commitment to Medicare beneficiaries.”
But there is a catch. Before, any person with sufficiently low income could take advantage of the Share Card’s benefits. Now, people will have to sign up for the U Share Medicare-approved card—and individuals can only sign up for one Medicare-approved card—to gain these benefits. By replacing the Share Card with the U Share card, therefore, Pfizer is using individuals’ reliance on its drugs to build market share for U Share. Anyone who does not use the U Share card will be unable to get Pfizer’s deep discounts. Pity the person who is a heavy user of Pfizer products but already signed up for another Medicare-approved discount card.
Pharmaceutical companies are to be applauded for their patient assistance programs, which are a shining example of good corporate citizenship in a time when “Big Pharma” has come to mean unadulterated corporate greed to much of the American electorate. With much-touted Medicare drug discount cards offering only small savings, these patient assistance programs are as important as ever in ensuring the affordability of needed medications. Encourage pharmaceutical manufacturers to continue them.
Medical Record
Fast Relief
- Prescription drug prices are soaring well above the inflation rate. In 2003, retail prescription drug prices increased at 6.9 percent, more than three times the rate of inflation, 2.2 percent (AARP, 2004).
- As a result of the new law, the government lacks the ability to tame the explosion of prescription drug costs. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Modernization and Improvement Act of 2003 expressly forbids the federal government from interfering with drug price negotiations (§1860D-11(i)).
- U.S. prescription drug prices grossly exceed those in other industrialized nations. In 2002, Americans paid 67 percent more than Canadians did for patented drug products (Canadian Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, 2003).
- Savings from Medicare-approved cards are similar to those available from preexisting discount cards, and worse than those available from the VA and Canada. In northwest Washington, D.C., for example, discounts from Medicare-approved cards on the 10 most commonly used drugs average 13 percent. In contrast, on the same drugs, federal supply schedule discounts average 46 percent, and discounts from Canada average 41 percent (Medicare Rights Center, May 2004).
- People with Medicare are ill-equipped to make the decisions the drug card program demands. At least 56 percent of the Medicare population has difficulty using comparative information (Health Affairs, May/June 2001). The key tool for comparing Medicare-approved drug discount cards is www.medicare.gov, and yet, of the 31 percent of people over 65 who have ever used the internet, only two percent have visited www.medicare.gov (Kaiser Family Foundation, June 2004).
What you can do:
Encourage pharmaceutical companies to maintain their patient assistance programs. Affirm the vital importance of these programs to ensuring access to medications for people with low incomes and no drug coverage.
Contact information for three major pharmaceutical companies:
Pfizer, Inc.
Henry A. McKinnell, Jr., PhD, Chairman and CEO
235 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017
(212) 733-2323GlaxoSmithKline USA
Christopher Viehbacher, President, US Pharmaceuticals
5 Moore Drive
P.O. Box 13398
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
(888) 825-5249Eli Lilly and Company
Sidney Taurel, Chairman, President and CEO
Lilly Corporate Center
Indianapolis, IN 46285
(317) 276-2000
Share Your Story
It is vital for policymakers and the public to see and feel the plight of people battling to get the health care they need, including people who cannot afford their prescription drugs or people with disabilities who go uninsured while waiting two years for their Medicare coverage to begin. The Medicare Rights Center would like to hear from you. You can become a part of our effort to make Americans’ stories reverberate at the local, state and national levels. If you would like to tell your story to the Medicare Rights Center, please visit www.medicarerights.org/maincontenthiddenlives.html.
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In each issue, the Medicare Rights Center will provide you with up-to-date information on the issues and advocacy strategies for addressing them. The list-serve is named for the Greek and Roman god of medicine who, acclaimed for his healing abilities, was at one point the most worshipped god in Greece.
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