Drug Costs Lead County to Revisit Discount Cards
June 4, 2008
As the economy slides and fuel and food prices rise, Fairfax County is looking at signing up for a program to help residents save on the growing costs of one necessity: prescription medication.
A county working group is studying programs -- including one offered by a Web-based nonprofit group, YourRxCard, and another offered by the National Association of Counties -- that offer cards providing discounts on generic and name-brand drugs at thousands of pharmacies nationwide. Such programs, available to people with or without insurance, could be a boon to those on tight budgets, said Fairfax County Board Chairman Gerald E. Connolly.
"There are a substantial number of people, especially some of our senior citizens, on fixed incomes for whom the cost of prescriptions is an ever larger bite of their budgets," Connolly said. "And so trying to see if we can develop a program . . . that would significantly lower the price of pharmaceuticals for our citizens and therefore give more accessibility to more people to the drugs they need is the goal."
Rising medication costs, increased prescription drug use and a growing elderly population are prompting local governments to look for ways to keep medications affordable. At least 42 states have passed some form of pharmaceutical assistance law, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
As of April, nearly 1,000 counties had enrolled in a program offered by the District-based National Association of Counties, or NACo. Those include more than one-third of Virginia's counties, including Loudoun and Prince William, said Jim Campbell, executive director of the Virginia Association of Counties. About 500 counties participate in a YourRxCard program called CountyRxCard, said the company's chief executive, Rex Bowden.
"Local governing bodies are starting to feel that prescription drugs are a major cost in people's lives . . . and there are a number of discount programs around that people can avail themselves to," Campbell said. "People are becoming more sensitive to it and trying to help out their constituents any way they can."
Fairfax has previously considered other discount medication cards, including the one offered by NACo. Officials decided against that plan because of concerns that it might jeopardize some of the county's relationships with pharmaceutical companies that donate medications to its "safety net" program, said Verdia L. Haywood, deputy county executive for human services.
The safety net program provides free health care to about 25,000 uninsured Fairfax residents who earn no more than 200 percent of the poverty level and are not eligible for programs such as Medicaid. But Fairfax officials are especially concerned about those among the 85,000 or so county residents who are uninsured and not covered by the safety net. Many probably struggle to pay for medications, Haywood said.
"There's a gap there, clearly," he said. "They have to pay the full cost of their medical care and, obviously, prescription drugs."
Now the working group is taking a fresh look at NACo's and other programs, Connolly said. The group will make recommendations on the programs sometime after June 20, Haywood said.
Such programs, subsidized by fees from pharmacies, offer discount cards for free to those eligible. Depending on the program, people with insurance might be able to use the card to get discounts on medications that their policy does not cover or might use it to reduce their deductible.
The YourRxCard program provides an average discount of 39 percent on prescriptions filled at 57,000 pharmacies nationwide, Bowden said. The NACo card is also accepted at 57,000 pharmacies, and the organization says average savings are 22 percent.
