Medicare Rx plan being retooled

While the government works on its program, at least one company is going ahead with its own drug card for prescription coverage.

By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. Nov. 26, 2001.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will have to publish information about a proposed drug discount card for seniors before any such plan can be implemented.

And a federal court says that plan is going to have to be different from the one the Bush administration pitched earlier this year.

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Paul L. Friedman earlier this month stayed -- or temporarily suspended -- a lawsuit against the government so it could submit a revised version of a proposed drug discount card policy to the Federal Register for public comment.

Representatives of the groups who filed the suit say they are pleased with the ruling.

"The court in no way gave approval for a discount card," said John M. Rector Sr., vice president of government affairs and general counsel for National Community Pharmacists Assn. which sued the government over the proposed drug card plan along with the National Assn. of Chain Drug Stores.

The proposed prescription drug program was part of a larger announcement Bush made earlier this summer outlining what he wants to see as part of Medicare reform legislation. The Rx card was proposed as a way for senior citizens to get immediate breaks on soaring prescription drug prices while lawmakers work on other Medicare reforms.

But the NCPA and NCDS sued CMS Administrator Thomas Scully and Dept. of Health and Human Services Administrator Tommy Thompson in July. They said the program had been created illegally and this fall, the groups won a temporary injunction against the program. [...]