Fred Meyer and Safeway said their pharmacies would continue to serve existing Medicaid patients and to take new ones, though both expressed concern that the reimbursement rate is too low for pharmacies to make a profit.
The amount private insurers and Medicaid pay pharmacies for prescriptions isn’t the actual cost of those drugs but rather is based on what’s called the drug’s estimated average wholesale price. But that figure is more like the sticker price on a car than its actual wholesale cost. Washington was reimbursing pharmacies 86 percent of a drug’s average wholesale price until July, when it began paying them just 84 percent. While pharmacies weren’t happy about the reimbursement reduction, the Department of Social and Health Services said that move was expected to save the state about $10 million.
Then in September came another blow. The average wholesale price is calculated by a private company, which was accused in a Massachusetts lawsuit of fraudulently inflating its figures. The company did not admit wrongdoing but agreed in a court settlement to ratchet its figures down by about 4 percent. That agreement took effect in September — and prompted a lawsuit by a group of pharmacies and trade associations that said Washington state didn’t follow federal law in setting its reimbursement rate, and that that rate is too low. The lawsuit is pending. “Washington state Medicaid is now reimbursing pharmacies less than their cost of participation,” said Jeff Rochon, CEO of the Washington State Pharmacy Association. Pharmacies that continue to fill Medicaid prescriptions at the current state reimbursement rate are “at risk of putting themselves out of business altogether
Welcome to O-Hole’s AmeriKa
A normal person reads this and realizes that Medicaid is a failing government program and that it is only a matter of time before private retail outlets stop accepting it everywhere. The normals sit around, fret about how bad socialism is, and how our system can’t sustain this nonsense.
However, a leftist would read this as a travesty that mean ole’ Walgreen’s wasn’t willing to take an endless loss in the course of doing business. Your leftist would analyze any and all other profits Walgreen’s made, and demand to know why they were not rerouted into the partnership with this failing government endeavor in an attempt to achieve social justice. All of this followed by some chants of “No Justice, No Peace” and a round of singing “Kumbaya” around a recycling bin.
Sadly, we have too many of the second kind of people.
The most amazing statistic in the article is that Medicaid in Washington has 1,000,000 people on the rolls. That is almost 1/6 of the entire state population.