Two major pharmacy groups announced that they have filed suit against the Bush administration for pursuing a prescription drug discount plan for seniors without legislative authority and input from key stakeholders.
NCPA (The National Community Pharmacists Association) and NACDS (The National Association of Chain Drug Stores), which collectively represent more than 55,000 community pharmacies and 130,000 pharmacists, allege that the administration violated federal rules by failing to hold public hearings and by setting standards for the program in secrecy.
The complaint, filed in US District Court in the District of Columbia, attacks the administration’s drug discount plan over the “unlawful” way it was allegedly developed and over aspects of the program itself that the groups say violate federal law.
President Bush’s Medicare drug plan, unveiled last week, allows seniors to sign up with private companies to get cards bearing the Medicare logo that will enable them to receive discounts of up to 25% on prescription drugs. Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) will negotiate the discounts and administer the program.
“The whole business of the Medicare program — the sacrosanct Medicare program — and even the utilization of the name Medicare has been handled with kid gloves since 1965, and any time a private entity was involved in Medicare, it was explicitly authorized by Congress,” said John Rector, the NCPA’s general counsel. “What you have here is quite the opposite,” he told Reuters Health.
The groups contend that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) illegally delegates all power to a private company by having the PBM consortium create, administer and enforce standards for the program.
The complaint, which names HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Thomas Scully, seeks to block the discount program from taking effect.
HHS spokesman Bill Pierce declined to comment on the suit, but reiterated the administration’s contention that the program is a “first step” aimed at helping potentially 40 million seniors get access to drug discounts.
“What this issue is about is providing seniors with immediate relief that many other citizens have access to, including many of their fellow seniors, on an issue–high prescription costs–that they want action on,” Pierce told Reuters Health.
But NCPA’s Rector suggested that the program is designed by the PBMs to feed their own mail order programs. He said pharmacies make a net profit, on average, of just 1% to 2% on prescriptions, while the Bush plan promises drug discounts of 15% to 25%.
“There’s no way any online pharmacy could be forced to take that kind of discount and survive,” he insisted. “So in a way it’s built to assure that the people who get the card go to the mail order programs.”
“This plan provides false hopes to our seniors when they walk into their neighborhood pharmacy,” added Craig Fuller, president and CEO of NACDS. “The possibility exists that there are no real discounts on the drugs that their doctors prescribe, their pharmacy does not participate in the plan, or that they must take a different type of medication than that which was prescribed by their doctor.”
A number of interest groups have raised concerns about the drug plan, but pharmacy groups are among the program’s fiercest critics. On Tuesday, members of Congress joined representatives of pharmacy groups in opposing the plan.
At congressional hearings on Thursday, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson told Reuters Health that he was not surprise by the lawsuit and that it will not slow down the administration’s goal of offering the discounts by January 2002.
“I’ve looked at the lawsuit and I think that we are on very strong grounds,” he said.
Tags: drug, pharmacists, prescription medications