| No Cost Increases With CPPA | ||||||
| Monday, March 29, 2004 |
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Much has been written and spoken in recent weeks about the five-bill Consumer Prescription Protection Act, introduced in the Michigan House of Representatives in January 2004. Opponents of the legislation charge that it will increase costs to employers in a variety of ways.
The Consumer Prescription Protection Act will *Strengthen patient care *Preserve consumer choice *Protect Michigan’s economy Without increasing costs to employers, employees or retirees The five primary sponsors of the Consumer Prescription Protection Act have tried to be meticulous in writing the bills to ensure that employers, employees and retirees would not pay more at local pharmacies than they do today with mail order. The CPPA clearly and explicitly guarantees consumers a free choice of where to fill prescriptions, with no added expense for employers, patients, or dependents. The language simply guarantees the ability of local pharmacies to fill 90-day prescriptions at the identical price, quantity and co-payment terms as mail order services participating in the same health coverage plan. By allowing community pharmacies back into the marketplace that mail order companies threaten to monopolize, the CPPA actually could lower healthcare costs, for two reasons: •A more open, competitive marketplace inevitably leads to lower prices •Retailers dispense lower-priced generic medication at higher rates than mail order because PBMs force them to. The CPPA would double the number of options employers have to control health care costs – not just savings with mail order, but the same savings with retail as well. Click here to learn more about the cost issues of the CPPA, including rebuttals to charges made by the Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Services, and the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, the lobbying arm of the PBM industry.
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