So, now we have REPUBLICAN DEATH SQUADS - if you are poor, they limit how many medicines you are allowed to have.
Heck, you really didn't like grandma - did you?
This from "Kaiser Health News" -- please follow link to original
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http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2012/July/25/medicaid-cuts-sidebar.aspx
Illinois Medicaid recipients have been limited to four prescription
drugs as the state becomes the latest to cap how many medicines it will
cover in the state-federal health insurance program for the poor.
Doctors fear the state's cost-cutting move could backfire on patients, who have to get state permission to go beyond the limit.
"We understand the state is trying to get its Medicaid budget under
control," says Dr. William Werner, president of the Illinois State
Medical Society. "But our concern is it not be a hardship for patients
and a hassle for doctors in the execution."
Sixteen states impose a monthly limit on the number of drugs Medicaid
recipients can receive and seven states have either enacted such caps
or tightened them in the past two years, according to the Kaiser Family
Foundation (KHN is a program of the foundation). The limits vary across
the country. Mississippi has a limit of two brand-name drugs. In
Arkansas adults are limited to up six drugs a month.
Since June, Alabama has had the nation’s stingiest Medicaid drug
benefit after limiting adults to one brand-name drug. HIV and
psychiatric drugs were excluded. On Aug. 1 the state will relax the
limit to its previous level — four brand-name drugs — after the
restriction saved more money than expected and the state received money
as part of a settlement with a pharmaceutical company.
Jarod Speer, a family doctor in Childersburg, Ala., welcomed the
state’s decision. He said the one brand-name drug limit put his patients
at risk. "This is going to remove a lot of the obstacles we were
facing," he says. "Most patients can be managed with generics and three
or four brand-name drugs."
While most drugs have a generic equivalent, his patients with asthma
and other lung diseases faced limited options without access to brands,
says Speer, who practices about 30 miles east of Birmingham.
Alabama Medicaid officials were happy to rescind the one drug limit, which affected 14,000 people, but defended its need.
"At the end of the day, we have to provide care, but we have to have a
balanced budget," says Alabama State Health Officer Donald Williamson,
who acknowledged reports that some patients with chronic diseases were
having trouble finding generic replacements.
Other states with Medicaid drug limits are Arkansas, California,
Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina,
Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
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