Statements, i want to acknowledge the loss over the weekend of congressman john lewis, a civil rights icon who changed history at great personal sacrifice. In 2015 i was honored to be among those who joined him in selma to commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the blood sunday march which he led. I send my deepest condolences to his family and loved ones. Todays hearing comes at a time when our nation is experiencing the confluence of a health crisis, economic depression and a series of killing is that laid bare the Racial Injustice that still paints the country. Our focus is on covid19s disproportionate impact on black and latino seniors. As well as seniors from other racial and ethnic minority communities, black and latino residents are infected with a virus, nearly twice as likely to die from covid19. The state of maine has the worst Racial Disparity in covid19 cases in the country, also comprise less then 2 of maines population, they account for approximately 23 of all cases, lik
Because of the lack of understanding of the speciality drugs i put speciality drug in quotations this may be based on costs the important point i want to make awhile making progress in california if we enact all the things in our tool dheft well not make a difference until the pharmaceutical Companies Come to the table theyre not there yet and extremely highpriced drugs make it difficult for Insurance Companies to make them affordable and the reason for that the plans are negotiators would the companies about the cost of those drugs so they need to have a type of mechanism like a tiering mechanism in order to bring the companies to the table to lower their prices this is unfortunate because the consumer losses so when we had extreme expensive drugs there shs cost sharing because of the necessity to negotiate and that at least a lot of assess and discrimination against people the first effort i want to talk about the cover california that is a groundbreaking effort and they brought toge
To have a dedicated Pharmacy Service line that advocates and consumers can call to answer their questions and in addition colorado lien said standardized the tier definition so we know what drugs are in what tier i want to point out not all plans use the tier blue shield as a 1,200 threshold im not certain but it is definitely higher in california recommendations also is that if there are 3 or more Treatment Options for treatment at least one drug in that drug category has to be an tier 13 and this is specifically 5i78d and rheumatoid 5th reiterates and lupus for us it didnt go far enough only one drug is there people need different drugs to treat hiv and aids the board is asking to access the implementation of caps on the speciality tier the issue is that when Insurance Companies putting put caps on the speciality tier cost sharing that means a substantial increases for drugs so it is important for california to keep the formulas reasonable so i want to see the actuary process before
Thats out paigdz our efforts as mentioned in the presentation before me those costs of drugs are set by manufacturers upon drugs launched to the market once drugs o are on the market those prices set the prices for payers and manufacturers increase the price annually. Prices increases for and speciality drugs on the market are seen at 11 to 13 percent annually compared to the cost of living index of 1230 percent speciality drugs as mentioned are increasing at 20 to thirty percent announcing and more than 50 percent of the drugs are speciality drugs many of the drugs require long term and it is okay to place lower drugs. Could you speak directly into the microphone. Towards you. One example of the newer drug used to treat high cholesterol is a drug inhibit our their expended to cost 150 billion a year and to be the highest drugs in history estimated 270 billion in drugs expected to spend on drug in 2015 the cost per patient is 10 and 15,000 and it is not a onetime drug a drug youll take
Look to the state of california to clarify those although the government has said they last sector as colleen said did say we may have discrimination of all drugs placed on the highest tiers but they kind of not mitigated it but they added to this in a way that wasnt helpful in saying the plans could also use another factor to see why the drugs are tiered at the highest level not showing a factor that is discriminatory so what i was going to do into into depth at the state level to make changes i pointed out i started with this as a presentation because of the lack of understanding of the speciality drugs i put speciality drug in quotations this may be based on costs the important point i want to make awhile making progress in california if we enact all the things in our tool dheft well not make a difference until the pharmaceutical Companies Come to the table theyre not there yet and extremely highpriced drugs make it difficult for Insurance Companies to make them affordable and the r