Boston Ending Canadian Drug Importation Program After Few City Workers Enroll

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Also Included In: Pharma Industry / Biotech Industry
Article Date: 30 Sep 2008 - 10:00 PDT

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A Boston program through which city workers can buy low-cost Canadian prescription drugs will receive its last shipment of drugs in December, after the Canadian drug supplier terminated its involvement because of a lack of participants, the Boston Globe reports. According to the Globe, the program never attracted "more than a few dozen participants" (Drake, Boston Globe, 9/26).

About 14,000 city employees, retirees and their dependents covered under the city's Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plan qualified for the Meds by Mail program when it began in 2004. Program participants could obtain maintenance medications such as Lipitor without copayments but could not get medications that could have severe interactions with other treatments, require substantial medical management, are temperature sensitive or are controlled substances. A panel of doctors and pharmacists developed the list of approximately 50 available medications. Calgary-based Total Care Pharmacy provided the medications, and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino in 2004 said the contract between the city and the pharmacy required safety measures and ensured quality (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 7/22/04).

Total Care in July sent a letter to city officials announcing its exit from the arrangement. Menino spokesperson Dorothy Joyce said, "In the end, people decided this wasn't what they wanted." Michael Albano, former mayor of Springfield, Mass., who proposed a similar program in 2003, said, "There was really no incentive in Boston that I could see other than to help the city save some costs on prescription medication," adding, "I'm surprised even 16 people participated."

Boston City Council member Michael Ross said he believes pressure from FDA predestined the program to fail. Ross said, "We're being forced to buy into a system that rewards drug companies and punishes individual payers and municipalities and taxpayers," adding, "The idea was to grow the program, but the program was never allowed to get off the ground." Ross has called a hearing to discuss the reasons for the program's failure (Boston Globe, 9/26).

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