Prescription Partnership Program expands your drug savings

The Greater MN Health Care Coalition (GMHCC) and MN Citizens Federation - NE drug price program is getting a great reception by people eager to cut their prescription costs. Titled the "Prescription Partnership Program,” it offers low cost brand name drugs from Canada, Great Britain, and some other countries. For many seniors, it can provide a better deal - greater savings - in place of buying a Medicare Part D drug policy. It also can save money for people who have a Part D policy, and fall into the "donut hole" gap later on during the year. Our prices are typically 50% or more below normal pharmacy prices. Current users of the program are saving an average of $800 per year! Our members also get special reduced shipping charges.

Get a free price quote!

You can make one call to the Citizens Federation - NE office (218) 727-0207 to find out the availability and low price for brand name drugs. You can also email or snail mail us a list of your brand name drugs and dosages, and we will tell you what the prices are in our program. Then, you can decide whether you want to enroll and use our program or not. If you decide to order with us, our office will give you full assistance in getting your medications. We’ll help you arrange to get low cost brand name drugs from our pharmacy partner in Canada. Service is fast and very efficient: You get your meds delivered in the mail within 7-10 days. Refills are accomplished easily by phone.

For anyone, anywhere

Tell your friends and relatives, age 18 and up, living anywhere in the U.S. They can get the benefit of this great program, too! The price quotes are free. The satisfaction and savings are high.

Legislative Auditor report reveals state agencies’ failure to audit HMOs’ administrative costs

VOICE readers will remember that last summer, these pages announced that GMHCC had won the initiation of an important study by the Minnesota Office of Legislative Auditor (OLA). The study aimed to see how well three state agencies (Human Services, Commerce, and Health) do their job of financial oversight of the HMOs who run the state’s low income health care programs. It was partly triggered by Sen. Tony Lourey stating in a hearing a year ago that a Health Dept. official, when asked if they could vouch for the HMOs’ financial reports, said: “We hope they are reporting what we ask for.” Lourey called this “an alarming lack of certainty.”

The OLA’s study, “Financial Management of Health Care Programs,” was finally released on Feb. 11. It states in many ways that the two departments which are supposed to look at the HMOs’ finances (Health and Commerce), and judge whether they are excessive or not.

Who's minding the store?

For example, the report found that the agencies not only don’t audit the HMOs books for administrative expenses, but they don’t even bother to look at work papers of the HMOs’ hired CPAs. The Commerce Dept. claimed that it “doesn’t have enough resources” to do this, but that is not true. State law allows this agency to hire extra auditors if needed, and charge the cost to the insurance company. The OLA also found that the agencies do not have any consistent definition to calculate administrative expenses. The OLA recommended that the agencies look at these expenses much more closely, and get a good definition.

Administrative expenses -- so what?

What’s the big deal about dministrative expenses? Quite a bit, actually. When the state decided to hand over the running of the state’s low income health programs, via contracts with private HMOs, this was done on the assumption and hope that it would save the state money. The HMOs claim that they are very cost-efficient, and a key part of that is to say that they have very low administrative expenses. The Minnesota HMOs, which technically are “not for profit.,” claim that they have administrative expenses in the 6% to 7% range, and some even lower - 4% to 5%. This makes them look extremely efficient, and it makes their running of the programs seem to be a wise decision.

Let’s play charades

Yet these low percentages are only skin deep. The HMOs use contorted accounting methods -- one could say “Enron-style bookkeeping”-- to pretend that many administrative costs are actual medical care instead. This artificially lowers the administrative expense that they report. The charade was exposed by audits the state Attorney General performed several years ago. The AG actually looked over the HMOs’ books -- something the state regulatory agencies never did -- and found that Medica’s administrative expenses were actually 19%, at a time when the HMO reported 9%. The AG found that Blue Cross/Blue Shield of MN greatly under-reported its financial reserves.

The new OLA report mentions the AG’s audits, but passes no opinion on them, other than noting that the HMOs and the Commerce Dept. found the AG’s methods to be “flawed.” The OLA report, despite clearly noting that the state agencies have no real verification of the HMOs’ administrative cost, and that this is inadequate, takes at face value what the HMOs report, and leaves the AG’s evidence hanging in the wind.

There are many pieces of information in the OLA report, which if followed up by state legislators, can be used to call the agency heads on the carpet, and get more fully to the bottom of the HMOs’ financial deception and the agencies’ complicity. The Greater MN Health Care Coalition will be working to make that happen.

33rd Annual Convention Sat. April 19

Join us for the MN Citizens Federation - Northeast's Annual Convention on April 19! Help celebrate our accomplishments in working towards positive health care reform, and help us set our direction and priority for the next year. It will take place at First Lutheran Church, 1100 E. Superior St. in Duluth, from 10 am to 2:30 pm. It includes a delicious luncheon, and morning coffee & treats. Registration is from 9 am to 10 am. There will be workshops, debate and voting on issues, plus an important public forum on health care reform. Any dues-paying member of the Citizens Federation - NE can vote at it. This is a good time to join! Dues are only $15 a year, and include a subscription to our monthly VOICE newspaper.

Registration is only $10 per person, and includes the luncheon, coffee, treats, and materials. If you want to register, write to the Citizens Federation at 22110 W. First St., Duluth MN 55806; or call us at (218) 727-0207; or email us at admin@citizensfed.org We'd love to see you there!

Major health care reform progress!

Successful launch of MN Health Act campaign; passes 1st committee

In the short space of 12 days, the new state single-payer health care proposal, called the Minnesota Health Act, has made a remarkable impact. It began on Feb. 7, with several legislators holding a town hall meeting in Duluth, to unveil the plan. That same evening, they held a similar event in Hibbing. The next day saw events in Bemidji and Brainerd, and in Mankato and Winona on the next. There was good press coverage in almost all of the locations, including a story on the front page of the local section in the Duluth News Tribune.

The news coverage squarely placed the Minnesota Health Act, which would provide affordable coverage to all Minnesotans in a unified, efficient plan without insurance companies, as a viable alternative to other proposals which would essentially just tinker with the current broken system.

On Feb. 11, the legislators, led by Sen. John Marty (D-Roseville), chief author of the MN Health Act, held a press conference at the State Capitol to promote the bill, on the day before the opening of the legislative session. Other key leaders for the bill are Reps. David Bly, Shelly Madore, and Carolyn Laine. MN Citizens Federation and GMHCC members were on hand to support the event, and also to endorse it at a separate press conference held that same day.

Passage in committee!

All of this was prelude to the main event: the offical hearing and vote on the MN Health Act in Sen. Marty’s Health, Housing and Family Security Committee. The hearing room in the State Capitol on Feb. 18 was packed, with scores more people in the hallways. One of the star witnesses was Susan Jordan of Duluth. She told the story of her husband’s major heart problems, and the insurance company repeatedly denying payment for many needed services. She thought she was covered by her insurance, but found out it was a cruel joke. The out-of-pocket expenses were enormous, and the worst moment, she said, was when she received a mortgage foreclosure notice and a car reposeession notice in the mail on the same day. She barely made it through her heart-breaking testimony, and needed to be comforted by her friend, Toni Thorstad.

The hearing resumed in the evening, and when the vote was finally taken, it was 8 to 4 in favor. One of the “yea” votes was a surprise --Sen. Paul Koering of the Brained area, who felt he had to against his party and for his conscience. A key Democratic senator, Linda Berglin, is known to be hostile to the bill. Just before the vote, however, she “took a walk,” that is, she left the room so that she wouldn’t be present for the vote. The bill might or might not get through any more committees this session, but the bill’s authors expect that it will take a few years to get it passed.