Boulder lawmaker to target high prescription drug costs

By TOM McAVOY
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

DENVER - A Boulder legislator plans to introduce a bill next year to use the state's buying power to negotiate reduced prescription drug prices for Colorado's working poor.

Rep. Jack Pommer's proposal would cover people who don't qualify for Medicaid's federally controlled prescription rates and who aren't on any managed health insurance plan.

"It's an unfair twist in the market," Pommer said Thursday. "It forces people who are working but can't afford insurance and people on Medicare to pay the absolute highest prices for prescriptions."

Pommer relied on a Colorado Public Interest Research Group survey that found Colorado's uninsured pay 64 percent more than the federal supply price for 10 commonly prescribed drugs.
According to the survey of 19 states, filling prescriptions for the 10 common drugs costs $52.59 if purchased through Medicaid, but for the uninsured, $86.12 in Colorado and $90.21 nationally.

Colorado buys millions of dollars worth of prescription drugs for Medicaid recipients, giving the state the buying power used by private insurers to negotiate discounts, Pommer said.
Similar bills were introduced by Pommer and Rep. John Salazar, D-Manassa, in the last legislative session, but they died.

Salazar's HB1162 would have established a Colorado Council on Pharmaceutical Bulk Purchasing to negotiate discount prices on behalf of government agencies and other organizations wanting to participate in a pool insurance program.

Two other area legislators - Reps. Dorothy Butcher, D-Pueblo, and Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West - sponsored bills intended to make prescription drugs more affordable. Their bills also died in the House Health, Environment, Welfare and Institutions Committee.