“California Drug Price Relief Act”,
a more appropriate name for Proposition 61 would be the
“California Giving Lower Income Populations, Students, and State Employees The Same Drug Prices As VA Patients Act”
Take a closer look at Proposition 61, which was largely sponsored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a healthcare provider and advocate for people with HIV and AIDS. If passed, the law would mandate that many California’s state-run health programs would not have to pay more for prescription drugs than what the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) pays for its over 9 million patients nationwide. Why the VA? Well, with the size of its patient population, the VA supposedly has drug price negotiating clout, and federal law limits what the VA has to pay for a drug to 76% of a drug’s average wholesale price. This is a bit analogous to finding someone who pays less than you do for a pair of pants and saying: “I want the price that he or she is getting.” In this case, the he or she is the VA (which is, currently, more he than she.)
Ah, but not everyone in California would qualify. In fact, most wouldn’t. This price ceiling would only affect programs directly supported by the state of California. In other words, you benefit if you are poor enough to qualify for Medi-Cal, a state-run insurance plan for low income people. Or if you are a student at a state university such as UCLA, University of California, San Diego, or the University of California, Berkeley. Or if you currently work for or are retired from working for the state government. Or if you are in a state prison. (So you may qualify if you worked for Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was Governor or were put in prison by Schwarzenegger either as the Governor or the Kindergarten Cop). There are exceptions such as Medi-Cal’s HMO-style managed care plans. All told, if passed, Proposition 61 could directly lower drug prices for approximately 4.4 million Californians or roughly 11% of the California population.
