There's still time to deliver relief from high cost of drugs
Sunday, May 18, 2003 10:14 AM PDT
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E-mail this articleHouse and Senate negotiators have agreed on the broad outlines of a budget and are in the process of hashing out the details. Lawmakers could return to Olympia within days to vote on the final package.
But before the governor and Legislature call this special session a wrap and head home for the year, we urge the leadership to bring up one more piece of unfinished business -- legislation to make prescription drugs more affordable.
It wouldn't take long. Both the House and Senate passed prescription drug bills during the regular session. They only have to settle on the details.
And it needn't affect the spending compromise. If negotiators adopt the major features of the House bill, this legislation wouldn't require additional spending. To the contrary, it would help reduce the state's annual expenditure on prescription drugs.
The Senate bill limits its prescription drug benefit to low-income seniors and carries a price tag of some $15 million over the biennium. The more comprehensive House version would benefit virtually all seniors and other uninsured Washington residents, while saving the state an estimated $20 million in prescription drug costs over the next two years.
The House bill's savings for both consumers and the state would come about through the creation of a state preferred drug list and drug purchasing consortium.
The preferred drug list is the centerpiece of the legislation. It involves the evaluation of all drugs in the same class to determine which are most effective. When two drugs are found to be equally effective, the lower-priced drug is listed as the preferred drug. People who receive health care through the state would automatically be prescribed this preferred drug unless their doctor specifically prescribed the more expensive drug.
The consortium pools the buying power of all state agencies that purchase prescription drugs for the purpose of negotiating discount prices, in much the same way private health plans negotiate lower prescription drug prices. Eventually, businesses, private groups and individuals might join the purchasing consortium to benefit from the negotiated discounts.
The pharmaceutical industry opposes the creation of these sorts of state preferred drug lists and bulk buying pools -- for obvious reasons. Industry lobbyists have managed to block efforts to create a preferred drug list in Washington in each of the previous two years. They've very nearly blocked this year's effort.
The Legislature still has time to prevent a third straight defeat for this prescription drug legislation. But not much time.
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