[Mb-civic] big pharma get richer...but they can not help it..uh huh

[IHHS at aol.com]

New Medicare Plan to Cut Off Free  Drugs
Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer  
Publication date: 2005-11-17

Nov.  17--In an ironic twist, the new Medicare drug program is about to 
curtail a  benefit touted by the pharmaceutical industry and enjoyed by hundreds of 
 thousands of uninsured patients: free medicine.  
Under federal rules effective Jan. 1, low-income and elderly patients who  
enroll in the program, known as Medicare Part D, will lose the ability to get  
free medications through the drugmakers' tax-deductible charities, known as  
patient-assistance programs.  
Some companies, going further, said this week that they would drop patients  
who were merely eligible for Part D, whether or not they actually enrolled in  
it, as allowed under long-standing rules.  
As a result, in about six weeks, up to half of the roughly three million to  
four million charity patients nationwide may lose free access to more than 
1,200  brand-name drugs, according to estimates of three companies. Other 
recipients  should be unaffected.  
"Our program always has been to provide access for people with no other  
coverage," said Carla Burigatto, spokeswoman for London-based AstraZeneca  P.L.C., 
which has about 250,000 people in its charity program. "Now they will  
qualify for a government program."  
News of the cut-off followed a ruling last week by the Inspector General of  
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services barring companies from giving 
 free drugs to Part D enrollees, hoping to prevent fraud. While suggesting an 
 alternative charity system, the ruling threw a confusing twist into the  
already-baffling Medicare prescription-drug program.  
"The last thing we need is one more variable in a hopelessly complex  
situation," said Robert M. Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights Center, a New  
York-based advocacy group. On Tuesday, Americans could begin to sign up for the  
new voluntary Medicare prescription-drug coverage. About 42 million Medicare  
recipients are eligible for the program.  
Among the Philadelphia-area companies confirming they will drop  
Medicare-eligible patients Jan. 1 were AstraZeneca and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.  Together, 
they have at least 226,000 Medicare-eligible charity recipients  nationwide.  
London-based GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C., which has North American headquarters in 
 Philadelphia and Research Triangle Park, N.C., initially notified Medicare  
enrollees they could keep their charity benefits. But the company backtracked  
this week after realizing that it, too, had been confused by the new rules.  
"We're going to have to change our position," said a spokeswoman, Patty Seif, 
 adding that she had no further details.  
Some patients, however, may get a choice. At least three manufacturers,  
Pfizer Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Merck & Co. Inc., said they would  let 
low-income and elderly patients keep the private charity as long as they did  
not sign up for Medicare.  
"Nothing will change" for patients who do not enroll, said Laura Hortas of  
Bristol-Myers Squibb, which gave $500 million worth of drugs to about one  
million people last year. But "if they sign up for Medicare Part D, they will  not 
be eligible for our program."  
Amy Rose, a spokeswoman for New Jersey-based Merck, which has a sprawling  
operation in Montgomery County, said the company had encouraged senior citizens  
to join Part D, but would not punish them if they did not. "Our broad 
interest  is making sure that the people who need them have access to their 
medicines.  That's the overall goal of everyone in the industry," Rose said.  
Among patients depending on the assistance are at least 6,000 indigent people 
 with HIV or AIDS, according to the advocacy group Title II Community Aids  
National Network, a coalition including Pennsylvania and New Jersey groups. 
They  have called on federal officials to relax the rule.  
Drug companies created patient-assistance programs decades ago, and expanded  
them in recent years, to help uninsured people get drugs and to defuse anger  
over high prices -- the same complaints that prompted the changes in Medicare 
in  2003.  
Today, the charities are a staple of the industry's public relations  
campaigns and provide hefty tax deductions. Last year, the industry said the  
wholesale value of the giveaways was $4.1 billion, a large proportion of which  is 
tax-deductible.  
The charities, while costing a small fraction of the industry's $550 billion  
in worldwide revenue, also may help retain patients who someday could be 
paying  customers again, Hayes said.  
Under the Medicare program, the industry was keen on making sure enrollees  
could keep using their brand-name medications when their expenses hit a gap in  
coverage -- the so-called doughnut hole.  
The trade lobby Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America this  week 
asked federal officials to clarify the ruling to allow such exceptions.  
"We had hoped that government policies would preserve companies' options to  
continue their current patient-assistance programs," said Ken Johnson, a PhRMA 
 senior vice president, "in order to help low-income Medicare beneficiaries  
further reduce their out-of-pocket costs."  
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