Prescription Partnership Program Expands Your Drug Savings

The newly expanded 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 combines the low cost brand name drugs that have been available to our members for two years from Canada, with the new source for generic drugs in the Twin Cities: FairCareRx. Even if you have drug insurance, if your co-pays are high, our prices for some generic drugs might well be below your co-pay amount. Our prices are typically 50% to 75% below normal pharmacy prices. Current users of the program are saving an average of $800 per year! Our members get special lower prices and shipping charges than do the regular public customers of our two pharmacy sources.

One stop shop

The new, integrated program means that you can make one call to the Citizens Federation - NE office to find out the availability and low price for both brand name and generic drugs. Our office will give you full assistance in getting your medications. We’ll help you arrange to get low cost brand name drugs come from our pharmacy partner in Canada, and with our low cost generic drug pharmacy in Minnesota. Diabetic supplies are available too, at about half the normal prices. Service is fast and very efficient: You get your meds delivered in the mail within 7-10 days from Canada, and 2-3 days from our Minnesota Cities pharmacy.

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.

City Council endorses our idea to import drugs for employees and retirees

The Duluth City Council, following the recommendation of a special citizen Task Force, decided on Dec. 19 to endorse the Citizens Federation’s suggestion to offer low cost mail order prescription drugs to city employees and retirees.

The proposal was one among 15 recommendations that the Post Employment Health Care Benefits Task Force presented to the Council on Dec. 12, after several months of work. The Task Force received direct input from the Citizens Federation, including detailed calculations of potential cost savings based on actual drug usage and prices.

The Task Force projected savings of at least $800,000 a year by offering Canadian brand name drugs (plus specialized low cost generics from Minnesota). This is based on a conservative projection of 50% usage of such a program. The utilization and savings could reach up to $1.78 million a year and more, if the optional program is used to the maximum. The Citizens Federation has been urging the City to take this step for over a year, and the AFSCME union that represents city workers has been urging it for even longer.

Sen. Lourey (on left) at Citizens Fed Dec. 3 meeting. Next to her is Marlene Hart, Citizens Federation - NE Exec. VP.

Sen. Lourey agrees to push for deprivatization bill

A step that may seem minor, but can lead to fundamental reform of our health care system, took place on Dec. 2 in the Citizens Federation - NE office in Duluth.

On that day, State Sen. Becky Lourey agreed to the request of a delegation of Greater MN Health Care Coalition representatives and allies to author a bill, and hold Senate hearings on it, to de-privatize the state’s low income health programs.

Specifically, that means taking the administration of MinnesotaCare, Medical Assistance and General Assistance Medical Care out of the hands of private HMO insurance companies, and putting it back in the hands of government. n the House, State Rep. Matt Entenza, the House Minority Chair, has also agreed to get such a bill written and introduced in the House. He has already assigned House staff to work on writing the bill.

What's deprivatization?

In this instance, the term means reversing the move made back in the 1990’s by the State Legislature to put the administration of the state’s low income health care programs in the care of private insurance companies -- HMOs -- such as Medica, Blue Cross, HealthPartners, and others. The decision to let them manage the programs was made, at the time, based on assurances that this would be very efficient and save the state money.

However, it was also set up with the model that these HMOs could make profits off of the programs, as a reward for being efficient. These HMOs are technically non-profit, but that is misleading, since they contract a lot of their work to related FOR PROFIT companies. As it turns about, close to half of the very high administrative expense that the HMOs incur for these programs is their profit off of them. It is about three times as much profit as state government officials had expected them to make on these programs. There is also the likelihood that the HMOs are not delivering the programs the way they are supposed to - in other words, shortchanging enrollees and/or health care providers.

In other words, the decision to privatize these programs has really turned out to be a mistake. To reverse the mistake, the legislature has to take back the administration of the programs -- remove the middleman -- and let them be run by county governments and/or the Minn. Dept. of Human Services (DHS). Prior to the 1990s, DHS was the one paying the health care providers. And currently, about 20 rural counties are running much of these programs in their areas by themselves.

The big picture

There is quite a lot at stake here, on many levels. The HMOs and their allied for-profit companies (like United Health Care) are some of the biggest, most powerful companies in Minnesota. These programs are profit centers for them. They have been pushing for more privatization, especially getting control of the Elderly Waiver program of Medical Assistance. At the same time, they have actively fought (with the help of sympathetic state officials, like DHS Commissioner Kevin Goodno) the attempts of more Minnesota counties to get control of these programs in their areas. The latest outrage is that the Minnesota HMOs snuck in a provision this year to allow them to keep unlimited reserves -- that means, unlimited profits!

Many people feel that the domination (and profit-taking) by the insurance companies of the state’s health care programs, and of most health care in general, is inevitable.

However, this is exactly the wrong way to go, in terms of financial efficiency and fairness. United Health Care’s CEO, Bill McGuire, last year made over $100 million last year, and the head of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Minnesota, Mark Banks, made over $2.4 million. At the same time, the state is under severe pressure to cut the benefits and enrollments in the low income programs.

The insurance companies have overhead of about 20% (partly, but not exclusively, due to the exorbitant top officer salaries), compared to very low administrative costs of 5% to 9% of the very same programs when run by local or state government. Medicare’s overhead is 2% - 3%.

Stepping stone to public, universal health insurance

Therefore, getting the state to deprivatize the low income programs can expose the wrong-headedness of having any and all health care run by these corporations, rather than the government. And that, in turn, can set the stage to finally get a universal, public health insurance system that covers everyone well, at much less cost than is being paid out right now.