CARSON CITY -- Uninsured Clark County and other Nevada residents could receive an average of 20 percent discounts on their prescription drugs under a bill backed unanimously by the Assembly Government Affairs Committee on Monday.
Assemblyman Joe Hardy, R-Boulder City, said Assembly Bill 6 is designed to permit Clark County to start circulating discount prescription drug cards, which already have led to lower prices for 18,000 residents of mainly rural Nevada counties.
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Hardy said Clark County, on the advice of its lawyers, refused to participate in the National Association of Counties' prescription drug discount card program unless the Legislature first passed enabling legislation. His bill will go to the Assembly floor for a vote later this week and then to the Senate for further review.
Eight Nevada counties, including Washoe County, have joined the program since September. Hardy said the 18,000 residents using the card have secured 21 percent average savings. Their savings average $11 per prescription.
In contrast, he said, 810 residents in the past three months have bought drugs from Canada through a well-publicized program in which the state provides Web site information on how to order drugs from approved pharmacies. Drug company representatives expected Nevadans would save 30 percent to 70 percent on prescription costs when that law went into effect last year, but actual savings are unavailable because the state does not monitor the program's usage.
"All you have to do is pick up a card, walk into a pharmacy and use it," said Hardy about the association's drug program. "This is a huge benefit for real people who need medicine. When we start doing it in Clark County, a lot more people will benefit."
Customers do not need to sign up or give their name for the discount card. All they have to do is pick one up and use it, he said.
Hardy expects the card will be available at health clinics, doctor offices, senior citizen centers and other places where people gather.
AB6 will go into effect as soon as Gov. Jim Gibbons signs it into law.
Hardy hopes the Clark County Commission will join the association program quickly.
"Anybody who has constituents wants to do this right away," Hardy said.
He said the biggest benefit will go to people who do not have health insurance that covers prescription drugs. But he said even those with insurance should pick up cards because their insurance might not cover all of the prescription drugs that the association's card does.
But the card does not help consumers whose health insurance provides coverage on the type of prescriptions they are buying, according to the association.
Hardy said it is important that people on Medicare get the cards because of the "doughnut hole."
People who need several drugs experience that problem. Medicare pays 75 percent of the first $2,250 in drug costs incurred by participants. The participants then are responsible for all of the next $2,850 in drugs they buy.
The 20 percent savings could be invaluable to such people, Hardy said.
The National Association of Counties negotiated a deal through Caremark, an intermediary through which most major drug manufacturers agreed to offer discounts on all prescription drugs.
The National Association of Counties represents most counties on common issues and lobbies Congress for them.
The organization represents Nevada counties through the Nevada Association of Counties.
Caremark is a leading pharmaceutical services company, providing through its affiliates drug benefit services to more than 2,000 health plan sponsors and their plan participants throughout the nation.
All major pharmacies have agreed to participate in the drug card program, said Jim Philipps, a NACo spokesman.
"It is a brilliant program," he said. "It doesn't cost the consumer anything. It doesn't cost the counties anything."
Philipps said the cards are shipped to participating counties, whose only task is to decide how to distribute them.
Drug manufacturers agreed to the discount after Hurricane Katrina and other disasters, when news reports detailed how people could not acquire the drugs they needed, Hardy said.
Philipps said the drug companies also thought more people would buy drugs if prices were lower.
