The future is uncertain for a popular new program providing thousands of elderly and disabled Marylanders with a measure of relief from the high cost of prescription drugs.
The same state legislators who conceived the plan last year are scrambling to recoup a threatened loss of funding that could prevent the program from surviving through the middle of next year, as originally planned.
"We've got to at least maintain what we have and hopefully find nickels and dimes to make it better," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Thomas L. Bromwell.
But the original funding is in danger of drying up, jeopardizing a program that provides up to $1,000 worth of pharmaceutical drugs a year to each of the more than 25,000 participants who pay $10 a month to get them. More than 10,000 of the beneficiaries live in the Baltimore area.
Bromwell and other legislators were given little state money by the governor's office when they fashioned the aid package last year, so they relied on the private sector. The program, administered by CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, is funded mostly with money from the insurer.
In return for covering otherwise uninsurable people with various illnesses, the state gives CareFirst and two other carriers a discount on hospital rates. In July, Maryland began reducing the discount from 4 percent to 2.5 percent - and uses the resulting pool of money to help fund the $22 million drug program.
The drug program's problem is that CareFirst might phase out its coverage of the hard to insure. CareFirst, which is trying to convert from nonprofit to for-profit status, says it's concerned about the cost of continuing to insure such people. Although it plans for now to continue to enroll those who couldn't otherwise get insurance, it says it's not sure how much longer it can participate without burdening other clients through higher premiums. "We have no intention at this time of pulling out, but things could change," said CareFirst spokesman Jim Day.
If CareFirst were to drop out of the program for the hard to insure, the state would be left without a primary partner to help pay for - and run - the drug subsidy program for seniors. People may enroll if they are eligible for Medicare and their income is up to 300 percent of the federal poverty line - $34,830 for a couple or $25,770 for a single person.
