Letter: Guv should sign prescription bill

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has a chance to improve public health and the state's economy by signing a bill that will give consumers choice where they fill their prescriptions ["Rx bill is a flawed remedy," Editorial, Dec. 2].

The anti-mandatory mail-order bill was passed near-unanimously by the State Legislature, with every Long Island legislator -- Democrats and Republicans, Senators and Assembly members -- joining the call. However, pharmacy benefits managers have launched an expensive and deceitful campaign to muddy the waters over what this bill does and does not do.

The bill bans mandatory mail order, but it does not ban mail order. If a consumer wants to keep getting prescriptions through mail order, nothing in this bill will change that. But most consumers will no longer be forced to abandon their neighborhood retail pharmacist provided that pharmacist matches insurance plan provisions with regards to consumer co-pays and drug costs to plans.

What this bill does not do, despite the benefits managers' expensive ad campaign, is impose a "prescription tax." There is every incentive for the retail pharmacist to match mail-order prices, since as much as 90 percent of independent pharmacists' revenue comes through the prescription counter.

The unions, school districts and others who have switched to a non-mandatory plan have found costs going down. It is Economics 101 that competition lowers prices rather than raising them.

Joanne Hoffman Beechko, East Northport

Editor's note: The writer is a pharmacist at RxExpress of East Northport and president of the Long Island Pharmacists Society.