"I thought we were trying to bring down costs"
wrong again...and again...
2 stories...1 year apart:
Michigan, Vermont to deal jointly with drug makers
2003-02-20 (Reuters Health)
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Michigan and Vermont said on Thursday they will be the first states to jointly negotiate on behalf of Medicaid patients to wrestle better deals from drug makers.
"We realize with volume we can drive pricing just like private industry," David Viele, budget director of Michigan's community health department, said.
The two states, with about 1.5 million Medicaid patients, will sit together across the bargaining table from drug makers when they negotiate prices for prescription drugs for Medicaid, the state-federal health scheme for the nation's 44 million needy.
Budget-strapped states are employing bolder tactics to stem prescription drug costs, the fastest growing slice of Medicaid spending.
And they hope to take other states with them.
"We've gotten calls from different states every day asking, 'how can we join in?"' Viele said, naming Iowa as one interested party.
At least 34 states have or are about to set up some plan to help residents get prescription drugs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Michigan is battling the pharmaceutical industry over its so-called preferred drug list for Medicaid patients, which many states seek to copy.
The list is similar to ones used by private insurers. A panel of doctors and pharmacists trims the number of drugs in each category available to Medicaid patients without prior OK from the state.
Drug makers, who complain that such lists narrow the options for doctors, are suing several states and the federal government to quash them.
Jason Gibbs, a spokesman for the Vermont governor's office, says patients still have access to whatever drug their doctor prescribes. But for drugs not on the list, an extra call by a doctor is required.
When the nation's governors meet in Washington this weekend, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thomson plans a hard sell of the Bush administration plan to overhaul Medicaid. The administration says it wants to give states fixed payments but more flexibility in what services they cover.
Democrats in Congress oppose the plan, saying it sets caps and would allow states to dump groups of people now covered.
States have appealed for more Medicaid money from Washington to ease their budget crises.
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Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Bush administration rejects Michigan-Vermont drug-buying plan that N.H. was considering joining
By DEE-ANN DURBIN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration rejected a program that saved Michigan and Vermont millions of dollars by allowing them to negotiate jointly lower prescription prices from drug companies, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Monday.
The two states were the first to pool resources for buying drugs under the state-federal Medicaid program that provides health care to the poor. Other states, including New Hampshire and South Carolina, were considering joining.
Granholm, a Democrat, told The Associated Press that the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rejected the program late Friday on grounds it violated federal procurement procedures. Eileen Kostanecki, Granholm’s health care adviser in Washington, said Medicaid officials told her to expect an official rejection letter next month.
Mary Kahn, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Monday there has been no official response from the agency, and the program still is under review.
Kahn said federal officials wanted Michigan to list all states that wanted to join the program. Michigan officials, she said, wanted its program’s administrator, First Health Services, to put together the coalition.
"Our feeling was that it was not an open process," Kahn said. "If it was public, more contractors could bid the job."
A spokesman said Vermont Gov. James Douglas, a Republican, still was optimistic the Bush administration would approve the program once some technical questions are answered. Federal agencies have given "absolutely no indication at this point that the pool will be rejected on technical or philosophical grounds," spokesman Jason Gibbs said.
To join the program, a state had to adopt a list of drugs it would prefer doctors to use when treating low-income patients. Then states could bargain together for discounts on the drugs. Michigan said 27 drug manufacturers were participating in the program.
Kostanecki said Michigan saved about $40 million in drug costs through the program in 2003, including $8 million from multistate bargaining. Neither Michigan nor Vermont knows whether it will be allowed to collect on the discounts they’re owed if the program should end, she said. A spokesman for Vermont’s health department didn’t return a telephone call Monday.
Granholm, who is attending the National Governors Association meeting in Washington, said she was surprised by the decision because the Bush administration has encouraged states to cut drug costs.
"We are just enormously frustrated at the lack of partnership Washington has been providing," she said, adding that Medicaid is responsible for $455 million of her state’s $1.3 billion deficit. |
