Drug Costs

The stories are endless. Elderly wives choosing not to refill their prescriptions because there's barely enough money for their husband's pills. AIDS patients, on their deathbeds, requesting that their unused drugs be donated to individuals who can't afford the $2,000 price.As the nation's drug costs continue to rise by more than 8 percent per year, the stories become more common, more desperate, louder. And there's no indication they're going to go away."If anything, we're going to see more people using more drugs and spending more money on those drugs," says Patricia Neuman, a spokeswoman for the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan organization.

CareFirst BlueCross Blue-Shield experienced dramatic enrollment gains in the first quarter, but rising health care and prescription drug costs have held back profit-margin growth, the company said yesterday.Owings Mills-based CareFirst, which operates the Maryland and District of Columbia Blues plans, posted a $16.9 million operating profit for the first quarter, which ended March 31.That was up 22 percent from $13.9 million in the first quarter of 1998. Revenue in the quarter was $1.08 billion, up 14 percent from $946 million in last year's first quarter.

WASHINGTON -- Prices paid to U.S. producers climbed for the second month in a row in May without changing economists' forecasts for low inflation in 1998. A one-month spurt in prescription drug costs accounted for almost all of the increase."There's nothing much to complain about," said Cynthia Latta, an economist at Standard & Poor's DRI in Lexington, Mass. "If you look behind [the drug price increase], what you see is there isn't any upward pressure on prices."While the producer price index rose 0.2 percent last month, matching April's increase, the index has fallen at an annual rate of 1.6 percent for the first five months of the year, Labor Department figures showed yesterday.

DON'T HATE employers because they're still worrying about health care costs. It's their money, and it's still being blown like a salesman's expense account in Atlantic City.In what other industry is the product:Necessary, at almost any price?Ordered and used by customers who don't have to pay for it?Subject to expensive technological improvements whose benefits often bear little relationship to costs?That's the prescription for profligacy mixed up in the 1950s, with the spread of employer-paid health insurance, and catalyzed in the 1960s, with Medicare and Medicaid.

WASHINGTON -- Leaders of a Senate panel are calling for more federal regulation of drug prices, citing a report that claimed the pharmaceutical industry had increased prices for the most frequently used prescription drugs last year by as much as five times the rate of inflation."

WASHINGTON -- Still reeling from President Clinton's unprecedented attack on its profits, the drug industry began fighting back this week with a $500,000 advertising blitz proclaiming the benefits of prescription medicines to be worth the price.The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association placed full-page ads in 40 newspapers around the country, including The Sun, rebutting the president's allegations of profiteering and arguing that drugs help restrain medical spending by keeping people healthy.

Lola Oriente, whose blood pressure recently measured a dangerous 196 over 115, isn't taking her medicine any more. She's trying garlic pills instead.An energetic woman of 70 who still teaches tap and ballroom dancing, Mrs. Oriente decided "this medication business is for the birds" after three years of paying $90 every few months for a prescription of the hypertension drug Vasotec.With a $22,000-a-year annual income and a husband whose own heart condition requires $200 worth of prescription medicine a -- month, Mrs. Oriente decided a year ago that she would rather take her chances on a stroke or heart attack than live like a pauper.

Drug CostsOne of the largest culprits in health care cost escalation has to be the pharmaceutical industry. Last year, legislation to hold down drug costs was defeated due to superior lobbying by the drug industry.It promised faithfully to curb prices and of course did not. They hide costs behind the old research and development screen and buy full page newspaper ads to cover up and proclaim how innocent they are. I wonder how much more our prescriptions will cost to pay for such ads.Recently, I purchased three prescriptions -- 20 Pepcid pills at a cost of $57.14; 10 Cipro 500mg pills at $33.38 and a tube of Santyl 15 gm at $35.60.

WASHINGTON -- Faced with skyrocketing prescription drug costs in the Medicaid program, the White House included in its deficit reduction legislation an unpublicized provision that would deny poor patients some expensive medicines.The controversial step raises fresh questions about the administration's health care reform goal of providing prescription drug coverage to all Americans.The provision, contained in the legislation passed early Friday by the Senate, gives states -- rather than doctors -- authority to decide which medicines Medicaid patients can receive.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- If you want to know the cost of that much-needed prescription drug you're about to buy -- don't look to your doctors for guidance.Chances are they have only a vague idea or don't know at all. And don't be surprised if your pharmacist steps into the process, recommending cheaper generics or alternative medications.A pair of surveys released this week in Orlando show that not only are doctors generally unaware of how much the medications they prescribe cost their patients, but pharmacists are intervening aggressively in the doctor-patient relationship to lower costs.

Regardless of income, Baltimore residents can expect to start saving an average of 22 percent on their prescription drug costs, thanks to the city's newly adopted prescription drug discount card program sponsored by the National Association of Counties. Residents can pick up the card at local pharmacies, health clinics and libraries, and begin using it right away to reduce drug costs without filling out an application. An entire family can use a single card. "The discount card offers significant savings for the uninsured and underinsured residents of our city," said the city's interim health commissioner, Olivia Farrow.

Shop around 1 According to Tod Marks, a senior editor at Consumer Reports who focuses on prescription drugs, many consumers don't realize that drug costs can vary widely from one pharmacy to another. He recommends shopping around, and he says you can save hundreds of dollars if you are willing to do some price comparisons. "Pharmacies expect it," he says of the price questions. "These days there's complete price transparency. If you want to shop around, there's no doubt you can get the information you need."

Chester Burrell, chief executive of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, stood between Gov. Martin O'Malley and a phalanx of Maryland officials yesterday as they touted the company's contribution to help seniors pay for prescription drugs. After two months as CareFirst's CEO, Burrell is forging a relationship with state leaders that is in stark contrast to the rocky relations between state officials and his predecessor, William L. Jews. Before stepping down in 2006, Jews drew fire from lawmakers and regulators when he attempted to convert CareFirst to a for-profit operation and sell it several years ago. Burrell says he is committed to CareFirst's status as a not-for-profit entity.

Drug plan is helping seniors get medicine Despite the headline of The Sun's article "Drug plan too costly for many" (Aug. 21), the survey the article referenced, which was conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund and Tufts-New England Medical Center, actually found that seniors enrolled in the Medicare drug benefit are less likely than those without it to have high monthly prescription drug costs or to skip medications because of...

As its costs continue to spiral upward, most people now agree that America's health care system is broken. And as the race for the White House heats up, politicians on both sides of the aisle are clamoring to propose ideas that rein in health spending. Unfortunately, the policies offered thus far are misguided. As counterintuitive as it may sound, the answer to America's health care woes won't be found by harping over the price of care. Consider prescription drugs. Americans now take more drugs - and spend more on them - than ever before.

Carroll County's Bureau of Aging officials plan to launch a letter-writing campaign at senior centers this week, encouraging citizens to ask congressional representatives to reform the new, complicated Medicare prescription drug program, said Richard W. Steinberg, bureau chief. The program has been criticized for forcing participants to choose among a confusing myriad of private insurers and for leaving gaps in coverage of drug costs, widely referred to as a "doughnut hole." "If we can get thousands of letters from our seniors saying what the problem is, I think we can really get the ball rolling," County Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge told Steinberg and Jolene Sullivan, county citizen services director.

Since taking effect in January 2006, Medicare Part D has enrolled 22.5 million seniors in 3,873 Part D plans. Despite aggressive price competition among private drug plans yielding premiums 40 percent lower than projected and federal expenditures $76 billion less than expected for 2006 through 2016, Part D has drawn more criticism than praise because of a gap in coverage, dubbed a "doughnut hole," of $2,250 to $5,100 in drug costs. In response, congressional Democrats have made government negotiation of drug prices under Medicare a key item on their agenda for the first 100 hours.

Republican lawmakers headed home from Washington this week bragging to constituents of enacting legislation that, in the words of New York Rep. John M. McHugh, "can help lower prescription drug costs for millions of Americans." Which is true - if millions of Americans take their prescriptions to Canada and bring back the drugs in no greater quantity than a three-month supply. Even with election-year pressure bearing down on Congress, lawmakers were unable to strike more than a token blow against the pharmaceutical industry lobby that uses its political heft to maintain artificially high drug prices in this country.

A decision by retail giants Wal-Mart and Target to lower the price of hundreds of generic drugs signals a potential turning point in how much consumers pay for medication, some experts said yesterday. Wal-Mart announced this week that it would sell nearly 300 generic prescription drugs for as little as $4 for a month's supply. Target Corp. responded immediately, saying it would match the lower prices. For now, Wal-Mart is offering the discount only in its 65 stores in the Tampa, Fla., area.

With wrenching tales of low-income seniors being overcharged or unable to afford medication, advocates for enrollees in the new Medicare prescription drug program asked state legislators yesterday to cover some of the costs and improve the convoluted system. Advocates encouraged lawmakers to follow the lead of 25 other states and the District of Columbia, who have pledged to temporarily cover drug costs for some recipients. While the program, known as Medicare Part D, has puzzled many seniors, advocates argued that enrollees with mental illnesses and low-income beneficiaries - those covered by both Medicaid and Medicare - are the most vulnerable under the new system.