Drug firms offer saving card for U.S. uninsured

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Top pharmaceutical companies launched a new prescription drug savings card on Tuesday in an attempt to help reduce costs for the roughly 45 million Americans without health insurance.

The free card, called Together RX Access, gives patients access to discounts at pharmacies on brand-name and generic medicines starting next month for poorer patients who are too young for Medicare coverage.

To qualify, individual patients without health insurance must earn no more than $30,000 and be younger than 65 and a legal U.S. resident. Income requirements are adjusted based on family size; for example, a family of four must earn no more than $60,000.

While some health-care groups praised the new card, others said it highlighted the growing problem of uninsured Americans, who make up about 15.6 percent of the population according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Ron Pollack, head of the liberal-leaning health care policy group Families USA, said the Together RX Access card “would offer some important help” but that U.S. President George W. Bush and Congress needed to make expanded health care coverage a priority.

Without insurance, patients may be able to save on prescriptions with special cards but “they won’t even see a doctor to prescribe the medicines they need,” Pollack said.

The card is similar to another called Together RX that is offered to Medicare beneficiaries as part of new prescription drug benefits but includes more participating firms.

The new card offers uninsured patients discounts on more than 275 brand-name drugs, compared to 155 drugs for the card for the elderly. Both cards tout savings of between 20 and 40 percent on brand-name drugs.

Participating companies for the new card include Abbott Laboratories Inc., AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis AG, Pfizer Inc. Inc., Sanofi-Aventis, and Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, Inc..

Drug makers also offer free or discounted drugs to certain poorer patients through their patient assistance programs, though such offers vary between companies. Critics say the programs can be too difficult to enroll in and do not serve enough needy patients. 

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