MEDICARE AND MARKETS:

Medicare Web Site to Provide Comparative Data on Prescription Medicines (ROBERT PEAR, 4/12/04, NY Times)

Medicare will soon publish detailed information comparing the prices of most prescription drugs, shining a bright light on some of the biggest secrets in the health care industry.

Economists and federal officials say the information, intended to help Medicare beneficiaries, could also be immensely useful to other consumers, as well as to private insurers and employers who provide drug coverage to employees and retirees.

The data will be available late this month on a government Web site, Medicare.gov. The site will list the prices charged for various dosages of specific drugs at retail pharmacies in or near a given ZIP code. If a brand-name drug has generic equivalents, their prices will be displayed as well.

Medicare officials said the Web site would also show prices for competing brand-name drugs used to treat the same condition. Thus, a person shopping for Lipitor could see the prices for other cholesterol-lowering agents like Zocor and Crestor.

Ana Nunez-Poole, Web site manager at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the main purpose of providing such information was to help beneficiaries compare the merits of the drug discount cards issued by private entities and approved by the government.

Making such information widely available is an excellent way to bring market pressures to bear on the industry, but note that it is being done by the government.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 12, 2004 8:21 AM