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Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010 | 2:43 p.m.
Sun Coverage
CARSON CITY – A bill to save the Medicaid program an estimated $760,000 a year is headed for the desk of Gov. Jim Gibbons after three prior failures.
The Assembly Sunday voted 41-0 with one absent to allow the division to declare three drugs as preferred medication.
Low-income citizens in the Medicaid program would have to take these preferred drugs unless their physician prescribed another brand.
Senate Bill 4 permits Medicaid to list certain medication brands involving antipsychotic, anticonvulsant and antidiabetic drugs as preferred medication.
Charles Duarte, administrator of the Medicaid program, told the Assembly that a committee of pharmacists and physicians determines if a certain drug is equivalent to others in the same category. And then it is declared a preferred drug enabling the state to receive rebates from the manufacturer since these medications will be used more heavily.
The legislation has been introduced in three prior Legislatures and has never been approved. The bill has a sunset, or expiration date, of June 30, 2011, to allow lawmakers to determine if it is working as projected.
The drugs that are listed as preferred must be therapeutically equal to other medications in the category. Medicaid has had a preferred drug list since 2004 for other medications and has saved $13 million, Duarte said.
If the preferred drug is not having the impact advertised, the physician can prescribe another drug in the same category. Duarte said the state has denied the recommendation of the doctor in less than one percent.
Patients who are using medication now outside the upcoming preferred list may continue on the present drug, Duarte said.
The bill was approved Saturday in the Senate 20-1 with Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, dissenting.
Limiting patients whose bills are paid by the taxpayers to the cheapest option should have always been in law.
Allowing a doctor to prescribe a more expensive medication just because the pharmaceutical rep takes him on vacation is no justification for the taxpayers to be stuck.
Here's a novel idea; instead of getting a rebate from the drug manufacturer, how about the drug manufacturer lowers their price for everyone?
This subject is beyond repulsive in that we can buy the exact same medications over the boarder cheaper.
"Limiting patients whose bills are paid by the taxpayers to the cheapest option should have always been in law."
The problem is that
1) The cheapest drug doesn't always work (the chemical formula is the same, but the compounding process is different and may reduce its effectiveness in certain people) and
2) Some treatments have no alternative but the expensive, brand-name drug thanks to patent extensions that prevent generics from entering the marketplace long after the brand-name drug's manufacturer has recouped their R & D costs and made quite a handsome profit.
This article will explain why drugs are cheaper north of our border. The issue is not as simple as it may seem. The article focuses on price differentials due to government control of the pharmaceutical market, a lower standard of living in Canada, and legal liability concerns.
http://www.aims.ca/library/MPPI_pharma-r...
Obama made a deal with the drugs companies.
One part of the deal was to continue to ban or restrict the import of drugs.
Another part of the deal was that drugs companies were to spend hundreds of millions on ads supporting ObamaCare.
Don't you think too U.S is not poisoned to make money with illness.
Do you need illusive newspaper for example. Ill-timed question too, timeless abuser.