Health Care & Prescription Drugs News

The state Senate and Assembly today approved AB 2911 (Núñez/Perata), legislation that will create a prescription drug discount program for more than five million Californians without health insurance or with extremely high medical costs.

“With today’s passage of AB 2911, California is one step closer to bringing affordable medicine to more than five million Californians and one signature away from creating the largest prescription drug discount program in the nation,” said Emily Clayton, CALPIRG’s Health Care Advocate. “This legislation will go a long way toward bringing affordable medicine within reach of millions more Californians.”

The legislation is a compromise between two competing ballot measures (Prop 78 and Prop 79) from last fall’s special election. AB 2911 gives drug companies three years to voluntarily offer discounts to the new prescription drug discount program. After three years, if there are not enough companies participating in the program, the state may, just as all large insurers do, use the weight of its $4 billion Medi-Cal purchasing power to induce discounts.

“This program uses a basic market tactic to bring down the exorbitant cost of prescription drugs. The bigger the buying power of a group, the lower the price should be,” said Clayton. “It works for Costco, for insurers, and for government programs. This legislation simply bands the uninsured together to increase their buying power.”

The bill, part of a larger package of measures intended to increase the affordability, safety and accessibility of prescription drugs, will now head to Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk. AB 2911 includes compromise provisions negotiated with the Governor’s office and he is expected to sign it.

CALPIRG is a statewide non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy organization. For more information and recent statistics on the high cost of prescription drugs for California’s uninsured, click here.