Reverse cost-shifting. Some companies are eliminating copays on drugs:
Desperate for ways to curb soaring health-care costs, a groundswell of employers and health insurers are turning to a radically different approach: motivate patients to take not just the cheapest medicines, but the ones they need the most.Over the past decade, health plans have sought to save money by shifting costs onto workers and encouraging them to use lower-cost generics. But the new model — which involves lowering or eliminating copayments on medications for chronic illnesses — makes better medical sense.
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Funny how those copays weren’t lowered until after WalMart lowered its generics pricing. I figure the insurance companies just wanted to avoid seeing the Rx market shift toward WalMart, otherwise they also would have lowered copays for non-generics for chronic illness.
As an aside, there seems to be a growing trend of anonymous posters who seem to believe that anyone doing the “right” thing must be doing it for the “wrong” reason.
Interesting.
In my experience, insurance companies — including health insurance companies — typically do things for one reason: money. The rest is window dressing.
Hey, stop ragging on trial lawyers already!
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