[NYAPRS Enews] BN: Cuomo Budget Would Limit Drug Choices For Poor

[Harvey Rosenthal]

NYAPRS Note: NYAPRS and numerous other groups and coalitions are
opposing NYS budget proposals to restrict access to mental health
medications. In our testimony yesterday, NYAPRS focused particularly on
asking legislators to reject proposals to eliminate 'prescriber
prevails' protections and to fold pharmacy under managed care plans
without clear choice protections. 

 

Cuomo Budget Would Limit Drug Choices For Poor, Raise Costs For Elderly

Health Commissioner Says Medications Still Would Meet Needs

By Tom Precious  Buffalo News  March 4, 2010

 

ALBANY -- The governor's proposed budget will push prescription drug
costs higher for about 85,000 senior citizens in the state, and
physicians will face new restrictions on prescribing drugs for people
with everything from AIDS to depression.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's health care budget came under heightened scrutiny
Thursday during legislative hearings, held before the governor even made
public a final portion of his bill to cut more than $2 billion in
Medicaid spending.

 

The push-back by legislators on a joint State Senate and Assembly fiscal
panel touched everything from the governor's plan to limit medical
malpractice awards to what lawmakers say is a more than $30 million cut
for Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo.

Sen. J. Kemp Hannon, R-Garden City, chairman of the Senate Health
Committee, said the state "worked very hard" over the years to pump up
Roswell Park to give it a national reputation.

"It gets cut by just an unconscionable level," Hannon said, pointing to
Cuomo's reduction of a third for the institute's state funding.

Dr. Nirav R. Shah, the state health commissioner and a Buffalo-area
native, said he was "well aware" of the reductions facing Roswell Park.

"It's a big cut. We need to figure out how to make Roswell [Park]
whole," said Shah, who did not elaborate.

 

Patient advocacy groups, meanwhile, condemned a Cuomo plan to transfer
prescription drug decisions for some Medicaid patients from their
physicians to the Health Department.

Critics say Medicaid patients suffering from a range of illnesses often
have to try a battery of drugs until the right one provides relief.

"Physicians should have the final say," said Kathleen Arntsen of the
Lupus Foundation, who suffers from several autoimmune diseases. "New
York State officials do not belong on the medical team."

Shah called the drug proposal an example of the administration's plan to
"meet the budget targets while preserving quality care while perhaps
limiting choices from seven medicines down to one or two that would
still fulfill and meet patient needs."

 

In a separate drug fight, the Cuomo budget calls for cuts to the EPIC
program, which provides drug benefits for 295,000 senior citizens. At
the hearing, Shah said recipients would face $30 to $100 per month in
higher prescription drug costs.

State health officials later clarified the commissioner's remarks,
saying some kind of increase in monthly drug expenses would affect about
85,000 of EPIC's enrollees.

For some -- officials could not provide a number -- the increase could
exceed $600 a year. Officials contend the federal Medicare program could
pick up some of the expenses now covered by the state.

 

http://www.buffalonews.com/city/article357614.ece

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