They (the drug companies)already do. The same medications which you may pay $100 for in the US are less than $10 in the Philippinnes. Drug companies base their prices on the ability of the populace to pay.
Posted on 07/22/2006 5:29:02 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration on Saturday defended his proposal requiring drug companies to give discounts to up to five million uninsured, low-income residents within five years or face state sanctions.
California Health and Human Services Secretary Kim Belshe said the Republican governor's election-year plan was better than Democratic bills he has vetoed the last two years.
Schwarzenegger has unsuccessfully pushed a voluntary plan since taking office, and the one he formally announced Saturday gives drug companies five years to comply on their own terms - with a stick at the end if they don't, Belshe said at a Capitol news conference .
The plan she first outlined to reporters on Friday requires discounts for people who earn less than three times the federal poverty level, or about $60,000 a year for a family of four.
The plan would cut participants' cost by a projected 40 percent on name-brand drugs and 60 percent on generic drugs. They could sign up and pay a $10 annual fee at pharmacies, doctor's offices or over the Internet.
Companies that do not cooperate could be cut out of the state's Medi-Cal program, which provides about $4 billion in drugs annually to poor and elderly people. However, the proposed punishment would require approval from the federal government.
"This program will provide meaningful discounts to help working Californians who pay the most for prescription drugs and who also can afford it the least," Schwarzenegger said in a statement Saturday.
The governor's announcement comes two days before his health care affordability summit in Los Angeles. The event will bring together often feuding factions including labor leaders such as Andy Stern, the national president of the Service Employees International Union, and business leaders such as Safeway CEO Steve Burd.
Unlike previous plans, Schwarzenegger's proposal won't hurt the state's budget and won't allow disrupting care to Medi-Cal participants even if drug companies refuse to provide discounts, Belshe said.
The state would not subsidize the discounts under Schwarzenegger's plan. His plan would allow fewer participants than a program proposed by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, which would offer discounts to families of four earning as much as $66,000 a year.
Schwarzenegger will ask Nunez, D-Los Angeles, and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, to amend their prescription drug bills to include his safeguards so that he can sign the bill this year, Belshe said.
"I welcome the governor's change in position on this longstanding core issue for Democrats," Nunez said Saturday. But the governor has yet to provide specifics, he said, leaving implementation, timing and eligibility to be negotiated.
State Treasurer Phil Angelides, Schwarzenegger's Democratic opponent in November's gubernatorial election, said the governor's plan amounts to "crossing your fingers and waiting five years for the drug companies to lower their prices."
Belshe said Schwarzenegger's desire to lower drug costs has been "one of his highest priorities." Earlier this year, she noted, he created an emergency relief program when a new federal prescription drug program, Medicare Part D, threatened drug programs for more than 1 million elderly and disabled residents.
"This is an important first step," Lupe Alonzo-Diaz, executive director of the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, said of Schwarzenegger's plan at Saturday's news conference. More needs to be done to cover the uninsured, she said.
Thirty-two other states currently operate state pharmacy discount programs, according to Nunez's office.
Although polls have shown many Californians support drug discount programs, voters rejected two competing measures in November's special election.
Pharmaceutical companies launched a multi-million-dollar attack against a measure that would have required them to give steep discounts to uninsured Californians in order to participate in the state's Medi-Cal program. The companies offered their own ballot initiative, which made such a discount program voluntary.
Schwarzenegger's plan "brings us much closer to achieving a compromise between the competing approaches previously offered in the Legislature and in the initiative process last fall," said Helen Russ, president of the American Association of Retired Persons, California. "We are now confident that a meaningful bill can be enacted this year."
More buying of votes with SOCIALISM. It just never ends.
The truth is the drug companies do give free drugs to the truly needy. This is absurd.
Our silly republican Governor in Mn. Wants a 2 year ban on Drug Company Commercials, it makes people want the drugs, causing the prices to go up. {Tim Pawlenty}
Marching lockstep to Schmidt's principal, campaign strategy.
Comparing Dumb to Dumber!
First FO and now Belshe.
So if these drug companies are forced to sell drugs to people for 40% less....will they make it up on the backs of people like me that qualify for NOTHING? Of course they will, they have to make their money somewhere.
....will they make it up on the backs of people like me that qualify for NOTHING? Of course they will, they have to make their money somewhere.
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Government price controls have always proven to be a disaster. This won't be any different. There are no free lunches --
They (the drug companies)already do. The same medications which you may pay $100 for in the US are less than $10 in the Philippinnes. Drug companies base their prices on the ability of the populace to pay.
Isn't this just a re-do of Prop 78 that Arnold endorsed and was
overwhelmingly defeated in the November 2005 Special Election?
So much for listening to voters.
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