CHARLESTON – The House Judiciary Committee on Monday decided a proposal to create a state wholesale import program for lower-cost Canadian drugs raises too many questions and needs more study.
So HB 2319, the bill to create the program, is out of consideration. In its place, the committee created HCR 24, a resolution to be introduced and approved for the House and Senate to jointly study the issue during interims.
HB 2319 would have required the Department of Health and Human Resources to create the program; but a House Health amendment changed the one-word directive “shall” to “may” to make it optional.
The program would import only drugs offering consumers a cost savings. Drugs would be distributed by participating pharmacies only inside state borders. The state would tack an administrative fee onto the prescription cost but the fee cold not jeopardize cost savings and pharmacies could charge no more than the wholesale cost plus the fee.
Drug import programs are legal but have to be approved by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to verify cost savings and safety concerns. The bill contains a provision to acquire that approval.
Committee counsel told members that three states have approved Canadian drug-import programs: Vermont, Utah and Oklahoma, though none are rolling yet.
Vermont’s Agency of Human Services issued a 12-page report to its legislature in December that said commercial insurers – Medicaid was excluded because of that program’s existing savings – could save from $1 million to $5 million per year.
But licensure and administrative costs are essential, the report says, and would require upfront startup costs, which could be substantial. “The state needs to determine the cost of operating such a program and whether that cost eclipses the savings for participating commercial payers.”
West Virginia’s Public Employees Insurance Agency issued a fiscal note for HB 2319. It said PEIA’s annual prescription costs are about $200 million per year. “Any program providing prescription drugs to our members at lower costs is welcome and necessary. PEIA will most assuredly work with the newly created agency to assure any pharmaceutical products acquired from Canadian suppliers resulting in savings will be incorporated into PEIA’s benefit design.”
However, PEIA also raised concerns. There will be unknown costs associated with the plan’s pharmacy benefits manager maintaining a separate price list. That cost could negate rebates owed the state and neutralize the cost savings.
PEIA has no way of knowing how many pharmacies will benefit, it said. And PEIA now pays little to nothing in dispensing fees, so DHHR’s administrative fee could affect cost savings.
Because of all those questions, Judiciary chair John Shott, R-Mercer, recommended and members approved creating the study resolution.
Other bill action
The committee did approve two criminal sentencing bills during its morning session.
HB 2527 sets the maximum penalty for forging or counterfeiting lottery tickets, a felony, at five years. Current law has no limit.
Lead sponsor Brandon Steele, R-Raleigh, said the bill came from his experience as a prosecutor for a person who passed along stolen scratch-off tickets. In most states, he said, the range is one to five years. But in West Virginia, he said, “he could face 22,000 years for $167.”
Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kananwha, said he plans a floor amendment dealing with the dollar value of the tickets, since current law allows a one-year prison term for forging a $2 ticket.
HB 2509 adds the crime of theft to the current list of felony offenses dealing with wrongly obtaining a controlled substance: misrepresentation, fraud, forgery, deception and subterfuge.
The penalty for this is one to four years. One member noted that the maximum penalty for this drug crime is a year longer than the maximum for forging a lottery ticket.
Some members were uncomfortable that a teenager who steals one oxycodone pill from his grandma and takes it could, under this code section, face a year in jail.
An amendment to do away with the minimum sentence was warmly received but failed after Steele pointed out that this code section was written to conform to other drug crime sections and changing the sentencing guideline could affect prosecution of multiple charges.
This one passed in a divided voice vote. Both bills go to the full House.
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