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Creating a Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit: Assessing Efforts to Help America's Low-Income Seniors
Subcommittee on Health
Mr. Brian Tyler Ph.D.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman
and members of the committee. Introduction My name is Brian Tyler, and I
am Senior Vice President, Business Development and Strategy, at McKesson
Corporation. Thank you for inviting
me here today on behalf of McKesson Corporation to discuss our role as the
administrator of the Together RxT Card. Together RxT Card Medicare seniors on limited
income who don't have prescription drug coverage sometimes have to make
difficult choices between essential medicines or food on the table.
The Together RxT Card combines the resources of seven major
pharmaceutical manufacturing companies to address this need by offering average
savings of 20% to 40% on more than 150 widely prescribed medicines.
This free, easy-to-use card is available to seniors who lack any public
or private prescription drug coverage and have incomes that meet the eligibility
thresholds. These income
thresholds, at $28,000 per year for individuals or $38,000 for couples, or
approximately 300% of the federal poverty level, exceed those of any other drug
savings card now available; thus, more seniors in need will be eligible for this
Card. The founding members of
Together Rx, L.L.C., are: Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca, Aventis
Pharmaceuticals, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson &
Johnson (through its Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, Inc. and Janssen Pharmaceutica
Products L.P. companies.), and Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation.
McKesson is facilitating this single card that offers access to savings
on more medicines than any existing pharmaceutical company prescription savings
program. As a result, the Together RxT Card makes it more convenient
and easier for those enrolled in Medicare to get medicines, such as Glucophage,
Voltaren, Paxil, Monopril, Reminyl, Gleevec, Synthroid and Pravachol, which they
so critically need to fight diabetes, arthritis, depression, hypertension,
Alzheimer's disease, cancer, hypothyroidism and high cholesterol. We have seen tremendous
enthusiasm for and interest in this initiative.
In the first 24 hours since the Card was unveiled on April 10, more than
10,000 consumers visited the Together Rx Web site and we received nearly 11,000
phone calls. As of two days
ago, that number had grown to 50,000 consumer visits to the Web site and 40,000
calls. By June 1, when the Card is
effective, we hope to reach a large percentage of the estimated eight million to
11 million Medicare recipients who are eligible for this Card. This is truly an extraordinary
response, which we hope will continue as the seven manufacturing companies
combine their marketing expertise to expand the universe of eligible seniors.
More than 30,000 sales representatives of the seven manufacturers will
distribute enrollment materials in physicians' offices, while the Card is also
promoted through continued advertising and outreach at senior centers.
Together RxT is supported by many leading healthcare and senior citizen
organizations, including AARP and the National Council on Aging, both important
partners in publicizing this Card. Through
the NCOA's extensive network of over 17,000 affiliated community centers and
its online web site, benefits checkup.org, we will be able to reach out widely
and quickly to Medicare enrollees in communities across the country, and ensure
they have the necessary information to enroll in the program. As noted earlier, McKesson
Corporation serves as the administrator of the Together RxT Card.
We currently administer the prescription discount program for Novartis
and have scaled our offering (enrollment processing, consumer and pharmacist
hotlines, pharmacy transaction adjudication, manufacturer-to-pharmacy
reimbursement) to facilitate the technological standardization of the
prescription savings programs offered by the seven Together Rx companies.
As the Together RxT Card administrator, McKesson will process card
applications, offer help and information via a dedicated toll-free number (1-800-865-7211) and Web site (www.Together-Rx.com),
distribute cards to enrollees, facilitate pharmacy participation and adjudicate
transactions. We are uniquely
positioned to connect three important constituencies: the low-income senior
citizen, the pharmacy and the manufacturer.
Our technology makes it possible for savings to be realized at the
point-of-sale in the pharmacy, and the use of a single card offers unprecedented
ease of use to patients and pharmacists. McKesson was chosen to
administer this Card as a result of our unique position and capabilities in the
U.S. health care delivery system and our proven expertise and experience in
providing services and technological connectivity to deploy programs such as the
Together RxT card successfully. Headquartered
in San Francisco, McKesson is a Fortune 35 corporation and the world's largest
healthcare services company. As one of the largest nationwide distributors of
pharmaceuticals and medical-surgical products to pharmacies and other health
care providers, we serve as the interface between the manufacturing and the
retail pharmacy community. For
the past 165 years, McKesson has served as a safe and efficient channel for the
fast delivery of critical medicines to our pharmacy customers, which include
thousands of independent and chain drug stores as well as hospitals, clinics,
nursing homes and physicians' offices across the country. Through our expertise in
advanced healthcare information technology, McKesson is also a leader in
designing Patient Assistance Programs (PAPs), which allow many of the world's
leading drug companies to meet the needs of lower income patients who lack
insurance coverage. We currently
manage 10 PAPs and have served more than 2 million patients over the past few
years. As a unique characteristic
of the Together RxT Card, McKesson will screen applications during the
enrollment process and notify those at the very lowest income levels of their
eligibility for even greater savings - and, in some cases, free medicines -
from the patient assistance programs offered by the individual pharmaceutical
companies or by foundations supported by the individual companies. Currently, such eligibility is determined by physicians
or other health care providers, and many eligible and underserved populations
are unaware of these patient assistance programs. Let me emphasize that the
Together RxT Card has no formulary.
McKesson is not paid to drive compliance or market share, or encourage
therapeutic substitution. McKesson will receive an administrative fee for its role in
the Together RxT Card program that is borne entirely by the participating
manufacturers, but neither McKesson nor the pharmacist retains any portion of
the savings provided by the manufacturer. Chain
drug stores across the country, including Wal-Mart, Rite Aid, Walgreens, Target,
Albertson's, Costco, Kroger, Safeway, and Eckerd have shown strong support for
the Together RxT Card, along with thousands of independent drug stores,
including the over 4000 retailers who are part of McKesson's voluntary network
of Valu-Rite stores. By accepting
the card at their retail outlets in communities across America, participating
pharmacies have made the commitment to pass through directly to the patient 100%
of the savings being offered by the pharmaceutical
companies. We are actively speaking
with many other pharmacies and expect to enlist additional support and
commitment in the near future. Closing I would like to close by
reiterating that the Together RxT Card provides much-needed assistance to
people on Medicare who are of limited income and currently struggle with the
lack of prescription drug coverage. This
program is an immediate, interim step that will provide drugs in a convenient
and expeditious manner to those most in need of drug coverage until a
comprehensive Medicare prescription drug benefit is enacted and implemented. The lack of prescription drug
coverage among Medicare beneficiaries remains a serious national problem that no
single company can solve. We at
McKesson commend President Bush and those in Congress who are calling for
enactment of a comprehensive Medicare prescription drug benefit this year. While we wait for that to
become reality, however, we would like to applaud the efforts of the founding
members of the Together RxT Card program.
We are proud to be part of an interim solution to help low-income seniors
realize needed savings at the same time that they gain broad access to
medicines. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman and members of the Committee. I
would be happy to take your questions.
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