BenefitsPro recently reported that more than 500 employers have banded together to form the Employers’ Prescription for Affordable Drugs, also known as EmployersRx. The coalition is lobbying for prescription drug pricing reform in the United States.
The group, which includes predominantly large employers and members of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, Pacific Business Group on Health, ERISA Industry Committee and Silicon Valley Employers Forum, is focused on calling attention to $150 billion in potential savings from switching to biosimilar and generic drugs over the next decade.
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times: exorbitant prescription drug prices are on everyone’s minds. Whether it’s employers, healthcare providers or the employees themselves—each link in the chain is feeling the sting of an estimated $1,200 Rx spend per person annually.1
As advocates for our clients, we always try to negotiate the best drug prices at renewal time. But awareness of “biosimilars” and generics is also important. It’s important to make prescription drug cost-savings a centerpiece of any employee education and communications strategy until—and even after—drug pricing reform becomes a national policy.
That’s not to say we haven’t seen advocacy in this space over the last few years. Hospitals, providers and employees have formed groups to demand healthcare reform, but having employers join this conversation is a great sign of things to come. As the ones footing the bulk of the Rx drug bill, it’s about time your voices are heard.
1Motley Fool, “Here’s What the Average American Spends on Prescription Drugs”
