Boyd joins free plan

By CARRIE KIRSCHNER / The Independent

CATLETTSBURG September 20, 2006 11:36 pm

— On Tuesday Boyd County joined a growing list of Kentucky counties, which have approved participating in a free program designed to help residents obtain cheaper prescription drugs.
Under the program sponsored by the Kentucky Association of Counties and the National Association of Counties qualifying residents can receive average discounts of 21.1 percent on the retail costs of their prescriptions. The program is free of cost to the county and to participants.
“It’s the first thing I’ve ever run into where you get something for nothing. It can only help people, particularly people who don’t have medical cards,” said Boyd County Judge-Executive Bill Scott.
Discount cards are provided to the county by KaCo and distributed to residents. The cards are honored by more than 1,000 pharmacies in Kentucky, including local drug stores and national chains such as Wal-Mart, CVS and Rite Aid. The program administrator, Caremark, negotiates the discounts directly with the participating pharmacies.
According to Tim Sturgill, general council for KaCo, 26 counties in Kentucky have returned the paperwork to participate in the program.
Boyd, Carter and Greenup counties are the only counties in the FIVCO region that have approved the program yet, he said. He added, however, that he expects every county in Kentucky will eventually participate.
No Kentucky county has received their cards, which typically take eight weeks to arrive once all the paperwork is turned in, Sturgill said.
Carter County, which approved the measure Aug. 28 will be one of the first counties to get the cards, probably at the end of October or early in November.
Judge-Executive Charles Wallace said he expects the cards to be popular. “I figure we’re going to give a pretty good bunch of people apply for these cards,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of people that are on minimum income in Carter County. I thought it would be good to get them some rebate on their prescription drugs to help them out. I’m always looking for something that we can do to help the citizens of the county out.”
In addition to saving residents money, officials expect the cards to save the county money on the cost of prescription drugs for inmates.
A KACo letter introducing the program, cited a story in the Ames, Iowa, newspaper in which the administrator of the Story County, Iowa, jail is quoted as saying that his institution, which averages 95 prisoners a day, is expected to save about $12,000 a year by using the cards.