Free medicine? Not for long


Drug companies are about dropping their free medicine programs

Economic behavior is human behavior. Mess with the incentives and the behavior will change.

Like this.

In an ironic twist, the new Medicare drug program is about to curtail a benefit touted by the pharmaceutical industry and enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of uninsured patients: free medicine.

Under federal rules effective Jan. 1, low-income and elderly patients who enroll in the program, known as Medicare Part D, will lose the ability to get free medications through the drugmakers' tax-deductible charities, known as patient-assistance programs.

Some companies, going further, said this week that they would drop patients who were merely eligible for Part D, whether or not they actually enrolled in it, as allowed under long-standing rules.

The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - November 18, 2005 at 04:45 AM  Tag


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