State Senate passes drug-discount bill

The governor said he will sign the bill.
By JEFF ORTEGA
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
COLUMBUS -- Backers of the push to bring prescription-drug discounts to low-income and elderly Ohioans praised legislative passage of Ohio's Best Rx, saying the effort would bring relief to nearly 2 million people in the state.
"I think the product is going to be good for the people of Ohio," said Kurt L. Malmgren, who represented the nation's major drug makers in the talks with labor unions and consumer groups that originally created the drug-discount program.
The Senate passed the measure 32-1 on Wednesday, sending the proposal, sponsored by Republican state Rep. John P. Hagan of Alliance, to Republican Gov. Bob Taft's desk. The governor vowed to sign the measure as soon as it hits his desk.
"Prescription drug costs are overwhelming too many Ohioans," Taft said.
State Sen. Lynn R. Wachtmann, a Napoleon Republican, cast the lone "no" vote in the upper chamber. The House overwhelmingly passed the measure Tuesday.
Malmgren, senior vice president of government affairs for the Washington, D.C.-based Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, credited the bill for taking what he called a "private-sector" approach to the issue.
William A. Burga, president of the Ohio AFL-CIO, said he believed the measures "will become a lasting agreement."
About the bill
Under the bill, the proposed drug-discount program would provide discounts of as much as 40 percent, depending on the drug and other factors, to Ohio residents 60 and older, regardless of their incomes.
Also covered would be state residents without any prescription-drug coverage whose incomes do not exceed 250 percent of the federal-poverty level.
For a single person, that would be $22,450 annually. For a family of four, that would be $46,000, according to state officials.
State Sen. Robert F. Hagan, a Youngstown Democrat who was the lead co-sponsor of the Senate measure along with state Sen. Robert F. Spada, a North Royalton Republican, said the measures were a long time coming.
"I'm not 100 percent happy with the bill," Sen. Hagan said. "But this is a give-and-take issue."