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Drugstores to Boost Drug Cards
After Senate Rejects Legislation
By: ANN ZIMMERMAN
Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2002
The National Association of Chain Drug Stores has
agreed to help market a discount-drug plan for seniors organized by a
coalition of seven pharmaceuticals companies. The decision to focus on the
discount-drug plan, Together Rx, follows the Senate's failure this week to
pass legislation providing prescription-drug benefit to Medicare
recipients.
Members of the drugstore association, which includes
chains such as CVS
Corp., Rite
Aid Corp. and Wal-Mart
Stores Inc., will work with the Together Rx coalition to educate and
enroll seniors, beginning with a campaign scheduled for six major cities
this fall.
An estimated 11 million Medicare enrollees have no
prescription-drug coverage. The chain drug association and the Together Rx
coalition say they hope the partnership serves as an incentive for
Congress to pass legislation providing Medicare drug benefits.
They also hope to attract more pharmaceuticals makers
to provide discounts through this single card. Currently, there are
several disparate discount-card options. Pfizer
Inc. and Eli
Lilly & Co., for instance, offer their own plans and aren't part
of Together Rx. The chain drugstores, too, had considered doing their own
card, but opted to back Together Rx, whose founding members are Abbott
Laboratories, AstraZeneca
PLC, Aventis Pharmaceuticals Inc., Bristol-Myers
Squibb Co., GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis
Pharmaceuticals Corp.
Through the Together Rx program, Medicare enrollees
without public or private prescription-drug coverage and with incomes as
high as $28,000, or $38,000 for couples, can get savings ranging from
about 20% to 40%. So far, more than 120,000 seniors have signed up for the
card since its inception in April.
"Our members deal with seniors every day who
have to decide whether to spend money on needed medications or food, and
we applaud the manufacturers for creating ways to provide meaningful
benefits to low-income seniors," said Craig Fuller, chief executive
officer of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores.
Write to Ann Zimmerman at ann.zimmerman@wsj.com
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