The cost of prescription medication has been going through the roof. Anyone with children who needs antibiotics or uses a prescription to control blood pressure, diabetes or cholesterol knows the sticker-shock associated with so many "miracle" drugs. The miracle is that anyone can afford them. The increased cost of prescription drugs was putting a terrible strain on the active and retired members funds and something had to be done and done quickly.

PBA President Pat Lynch and the executive board are attacking the problem on two fronts. First, we have found a new prescription service that offers better member services at a lower cost and, second, we have taken legal action that may lower drug prices for the future.

To find a better prescription service, we put out a request for proposal (RFP) and met with representatives of several different drug plans that wanted to be our prescription benefit manager (PBM). Caremark stood out above all the rest for superior service, quality, benefits and cost.

Caremark does more than simply serve as the intermediary between the drug manufacturers and drug stores. Caremark manages pharmaceutical costs by purchasing medicine in bulk and repackaging it at their own plant, thus providing a lower cost to you. But that's not all the company does. Caremark is proactively involved in disease management on behalf of its members because a healthy plan-member is less costly to care for.

Besides such features as around-the-clock customer service and a toll-free number dedicated exclusively to the PBA, Caremark offers a website through which prescription renewals can be requested. You can also check on your order status, new prescription medications and non-covered medications on the website. The website even provides you with a 13-month prescription history when you log in with your private password. This past summer, Caremark sent you a booklet explaining all the services available through the program. There are two ways to get your medicine: For immediate use prescriptions like antibiotics, you simply take the prescription to a participating Caremark pharmacy. There are 55,000 of them across the nation and a list of drugstores in your community is included in the front cover of the benefits booklet. For long-term maintenance drugs, you can fill out a form and mail the original prescription to Caremark and you will have the medicine in your hands within 14 days.

If you are on maintenance medication that you will be required to take over a period of months, you should request one prescription to be filled immediately so you can begin treatment and another that you can fill through the Caremark mail-plan to complete your treatment. Ask your doctor for a 90-day supply with refills. This way you will make one co-payment for a three-month supply. To hold prices down, ask your doctor to prescribe generic drugs whenever possible.

Generic drugs are manufactured to the same specifications of formula and purity as brand-name drugs. They just cost less because they are no longer manufactured exclusively by a single patent holder. Competition among drug manufacturers helps bring prices down. Furthermore, the PBA initiated four major federal class-action lawsuits against eight drug companies in four states, charging them with violating anti-trust laws by conspiring to keep cheaper generic drugs off the market.

In announcing the suit President Lynch said, "These allegedly illegal agreements between brand-name and generic companies force us, our members and others to pay artificially high prices for very important common medications. Our union and our members have been squeezed by these inflated prices and we are bringing these lawsuits to fight back." Shortly after announcing the suit, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) joined in the action on behalf of their 34 million members. Currently, the lawsuit continues with class certification in the early procedural stages. However, just filing the suit appears to have had a dampening affect on prescription prices. The rate of increase in the cost of medicine has dropped, according to reports last spring. We are hoping that as the suit progresses, that rate will be further reduced. And that's good news, not just for PBA members but also for anyone — like your Mom and Dad — who relies on medicine to manage the state of their health.

At the current rate our members use the drug plan, we project a savings of about $2 million a year in our health and welfare fund by using Caremark over NPA. Rest assured, your PBA president and board are working hard and smart to make your benefits money work for you.