Utah paying for state employees to travel to Mexico to refill prescriptions because it's cheaper
Oxycodone pain pills prescribed for a patient with chronic pain lie on display on March 23, 2016 in Norwich, CT.
SALT LAKE CITY - Ann Lovell had never owned a passport before last year. Now, the 62-year-old teacher is a frequent flier, traveling every few months to Tijuana, Mexico, to buy medication for rheumatoid arthritis — with tickets paid for by the state of Utah’s public insurer.
Lovell is one of about 10 state workers participating in a year-old program to lower prescription drug costs by having public employees buy their medication in Mexico at a steep discount compared to U.S. prices. The program appears to be the first of its kind, and is a dramatic example of steps states are taking to alleviate the high cost of prescription drugs.
In one long, exhausting day, Lovell flies from Salt Lake City to San Diego. There, an escort picks her up and takes her across the border to a Tijuana hospital, where she gets a refill on her prescription. After that, she’s shuttled back to the airport and heads home.
Lovell had been paying $450 in co-pays every few months for her medication, though she said it would have increased to some $2,400 if she had not started traveling to Mexico. Without the program, she would not be able to afford the medicine she needs.
“This is the drug that keeps me functioning, working,” said Lovell, who works at an early-intervention program for deaf students that’s part of the Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind. “I think if I wasn’t on this drug ... I’d be on disability rather than living my normal life.”
The cost difference is so large that the state’s insurance program for public employees can pay for each patient’s flight, give them a $500-per-trip bonus and still save tens of thousands of dollars.
Other states have taken new approaches to addressing the high costs of prescription drugs. California is looking at launching its own generic-drug label. Louisiana has a Netflix-style program for hepatitis C drugs, where the state negotiated a deal to pay a flat fee rather than for each prescription.
Several states are looking at creating boards aimed at keeping prices affordable, and four have started what’s expected to be a lengthy process to begin importing drugs from Canada under a new Trump administration plan.
The Utah program was created under a 2018 state law dubbed “right to shop,” by Republican Rep. Norm Thurston. The Public Employees Health Program offers it only for people who use a drug on a list of about a dozen medications where the state can get significant savings. Of the 160,000 state and local public employees covered by the insurer, fewer than 400 are eligible, according to Managing Director Chet Loftis.