Jeb! and Eli Lily make two wrongs
Jeb! and Eli Lily are fighting over money and the losers are Floridians on Medicaid who rely on the state funded insurance for their daily meds .
Florida's 2.2 million Medicaid recipients will find it more difficult next month to obtain the antidepressant Prozac, as well as a commonly prescribed drug for treating schizophrenia.
......``Lilly has refused to negotiate with the state altogether. They are the only of 219 brand name manufacturers that did not respond to the state's bid request,'' Jonathan Burns, spokesman for the Agency for Health Care Administration, wrote in an e-mail to The Tampa Tribune. ``Lilly's drugs, therefore, will not be on the [preferred drug list], but will still be available through the prior authorization process.''
The prior authorization process, which will apply to the Eli Lilly drugs by mid-July, requires that patients first try one of the less expensive drugs once a year before becoming eligible for their doctors to seek approval for more expensive medication.
Because of the hassle factor in that process, more than 95 percent of the drugs prescribed to Medicaid recipients come directly from the preferred drug list.
Eli Lily is not exactly pure in this affair.
In recent weeks, Lilly has taken out full-page newspaper ads around the state saying the new restrictions could force stable patients with mental illnesses off drugs and into hospitals. Advocacy groups have gotten involved as well. The American Psychiatric Association put out a release saying the new policy will "create a statewide mental health emergency."
The state fired back Monday. Gov. Jeb Bush slammed drug companies that "create uncertainty and concern," while Alan Levine, secretary for the state agency administering Medicaid, blasted Lilly in a letter to the company's CEO.
"Intentionally creating fear and confusion among Florida's most vulnerable is a truly reprehensible strategy for protecting exorbitant prices," wrote Levine, secretary for the Agency for Health Care Administration.
What do doctors say about the new law, which requires that Medicaid patients first try drugs on an approved list and switch to others only if the first drugs fail?
"This is another second-class citizen type of slap at people with psychiatric illness," said Dr. Glenn Catalano, a psychiatry professor at the University of South Florida College of Medicine. "It doesn't seem like there's been a great attempt at understanding how these medications work."
......Psychiatrists say patients respond differently to each drug - an effect more pronounced with psychiatric drugs than with those for, say, high blood pressure. Forcing a stable schizophrenic patient to switch drugs to save money is "a horrible idea," said Dr. Stephen R. Marder, a psychiatry professor at the Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA.
"It has the potential to destabilize the person," Marder said. "When a person with schizophrenia has a psychotic relapse, there's literature that shows it takes up to six months to return to their condition before that relapse."
Eli Lilly is one of the largest pharmaceuticals companies in the country, with nearly $14 billion in sales last year fueled by drugs such as the anti-depressant Prozac; Zyprexa, which combats schizophrenia and acute mania; and Cialis, which combats erectile dysfunction.
Company spokeswoman Carole Puls said most of the clamor in Florida is because of private advocacy groups, who the company helps support with grants, but whose actions the company cannot control.
But Eli Lilly is not backing away from the stance adopted by those groups that claims Florida's new drug plan is flawed. The company acknowledges it ran a June 19 full-page advertisement published in 12 Florida newspapers, including The Palm Beach Post, calling the new plan "Florida's Mental Health Emergency."
Puls said the company remains committed to other, more productive ways of saving states money, but may reconsider negotiating with Florida in time for Wednesday's meeting.
Bottom line: Eli Lily is a greedy pharma company and which loathes the idea of taking a little less profit even if thousands of people would benefit. Jeb! has ambitions for national office and ruining the lives of poor people for some token cost savings makes him a hero in the eyes of his hateful, greedy base.
Two villains fighting over peanuts while real people suffer.