Not On My Watch

It seems like, in this business, that an issue can arise seemingly out of nowhere that can inflame a large number of people rather quickly. It usually happens when we are in session and there is an issue being discussed before the legislature. This one was different and it has the potential to impact anyone out there who carries Health Choice insurance. The board that oversees the state insurance program is called OSEEGIB which is the Oklahoma State and Education Employees Group Insurance Board. OSEEGIB decided that they would take a step that they claim would save the state 8 million dollars in insurance costs. Like a lot of things sounds real good until you analyze how they are going to do it. The proposal was to take all state employees and require them to order their maintenance drugs by mail order. I was first alerted to this issue by Corey Fikes down in Grandfield Oklahoma, the owner and pharmacist of Fikes Pharmacy, a small privately owned pharmacy that serves a great deal of that area. Maintenance drugs are things like blood pressure medications, cholesterol medications, and heart medications that must be taken daily, any number of pharmaceuticals or medicines that many Oklahomans take on a daily basis. My first thought as I analyzed what was happening was one of the simplest reasons, it was the extreme temperatures we had this summer. I’ve yet to get a good explanation on how you could get a guarantee on how these maintenance drugs would sit in a rural mailbox in 110 degree temperatures and not have some detrimental effects on any type of pill and that was just the first layer of the onion. As you continue to peel back the layers you continue to find problems, one of which was even bigger and that was the fact that it had the potential to hurt the smaller pharmacies across the state. Requiring people to order maintenance drugs from some pharmacy in Timbuktu and take away the relationship between the pharmacist and customer. For example, Ms. Smith who may take a heart medication comes in to fill a prescription for some type of antibiotic or some other medication, she relies on the pharmacist to check on drug interactions which can be detrimental to her or a whole host of potential problems. Many times that pharmacist is the same person who knows her medical history and is that kind of 2nd layer of protection for her that a mail order house would not be. The person in the mail order house could be pharmacy grad student or someone of that nature who may, or may not have any idea of the patient or their medical history and may not even care. If they happen to mess up, no big deal, it’s some lady in Grandfield Oklahoma or wherever that they don’t really know so there is really no motivation to be careful and I believe human error would be a huge factor in requiring people to go mail order. One of the main reasons I think its bad is that it’s the classic example of the Walmart business plan. While we all trade at Walmart from time to time because many of the options have been eliminated, I still blame Walmart for destroying main street businesses. Now I’m not a Walmart hater and I don’t believe in my heart that Sam Walton started the Walmart kingdom with the idea of driving people out of business but the fact is that’s exactly what it has done. I believe that ordering prescription customers to order maintenance drugs through the mail will be detrimental to these local pharmacists and their employees. We are supposed to try to promote jobs in our state not eliminate them and I truly believe that while the idea was well intentioned it will do just that. Everyone seems to be engaging in what may be the battle of the year and it’s a battle we must absolutely win for the sake of our constituents and our locally owned pharmacy businesses because the result could be catastrophic

It seems that the OSEEGIB board may have done this when we were not in session on purpose with the intention of having it in place before anybody could react. I think what they are finding is that legislators are reacting in an almost unified voice to preserve their constituents right to deal directly with the druggist that they know and trust and still have some control over their own healthcare. There was a meeting held last Friday in Oklahoma City between the pharmacy association and the OSEEGIB board where the pharmacy association had some alternative measures that would show some savings without having to lay waste to small town pharmacies across Oklahoma. I don’t know the results of that meeting as of yet but I’m certainly hoping that the outcome was positive. I can assure you that the legislature will engage and that something will happen to rectify this situation. We’ll see.

If you would like to contact me at the Capitol, please do not hesitate to call 1-800-522-8502 or email me at donarmes@okhouse.gov

And here’s a little something to think about as you go down the road:

The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor. ~Hubert H. Humphrey