Uninsured Pay Dearly for Prescription Drugs
By Amanda Gardner, HealthDay Reporter
HealthDayNews — Uninsured Americans are paying up to 87 percent more for prescription drugs than the federal government does.
A report released Tuesday by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) found sizeable differences between the amounts charged to uninsured citizens and those charged to the federal government for 10 common prescription medications. There were also significant regional variations in price, with Northeastern areas topping the list.
“Uninsured Americans pay a great deal more than the pharmaceutical industry’s most favored customer, the U.S. government, and we documented that in 18 states plus the District of Columbia,” says Ed Mierzwinski, the consumer program director at U.S. PIRG in Washington, D.C. “We found that the average prices were shockingly higher for these 41 million uninsured persons than the government pays.”
The reason? The federal government is able to use its buying power to negotiate lower drug prices for its beneficiaries, including veterans, government employees and retirees. The nation’s uninsured individuals, on the other hand, possess no such clout.
This past spring, the National Association of State Public Interest Research Groups surveyed 559 pharmacies in 18 states and Washington, D.C., to find out just how much uninsured consumers were paying for the 10 drugs most frequently prescribed to senior citizens, drugs that treat chronic conditions. Those prices were then compared to what the federal government pays.
On average, those who are uninsured pay 72 percent more for the 10 medications surveyed. The differences ranged from 31 percent for Lanoxin (to help control the heartbeat) to 110 percent for K-Dur 20 (a potassium chloride supplement).
In dollars and cents, for example, an uninsured person needing Zocor for high cholesterol would pay at least $1,671 for a year’s supply. The government pays only $814 for the same quantity.
The report, called Paying the Price: A 19-State Survey of the High Cost of Prescription Drugs, also found:
– Prescription drug costs for uninsured consumers were highest (almost twice that of the federal supply price) in urban areas of the Northeast (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont) and Middle Atlantic (D.C., Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia) states.
– Prices were somewhat less in the Midwest and Mid-South (Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee), and substantially less in the Southeast (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina) and South/Southwest (Colorado, New Mexico, Texas).
– Even in the relatively inexpensive South and Southwest, however, consumers lacking prescription drug coverage pay 1.6 times what the federal government pays. For instance, uninsured consumers in this region pay, on average, 66.2 percent more than the federal government.
– The four most expensive cities for uninsured people needing prescriptions are Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Boston. Prescription drugs are least expensive (yet still higher than the federal supply price) in New Orleans, Denver, Grand Rapids, Mich., Houston and Tampa, Fla.
“Insurance companies are coming up with ways to save money for themselves and, ultimately, for their enrollees by negotiating lower prices for drugs for people covered by their policies, so this huge sector of the population has been left out of this discount mechanism,” says Gail Shearer, director of health policy analysis for Consumers Union in Washington, D.C. “This is the ultimate in price discrimination. Pharmaceutical companies will charge the highest price the market will bear. It is feeding into their bottom line. There’s no question about it.”
What’s the solution?
“We feel that too much of the debate is whether to offer prescription drug benefits to Medicare, which won’t really solve the long-term problem of prescription drug price cost,” Mierzwinski says. “The long-term problem will only be solved by real solutions. We are working on prescription-buying pools and bulk-purchase alternatives.”
Members of congress are also looking into ways to make sure consumers have access to the lowest cost drugs that will get the job done.
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U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG)
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