Governor Christie announces New Jersey’s seniors will see benefits restored to pre-fiscal year 2011 budget levels for prescription drug assistance at a Town Hall Meeting with seniors in Linden, N.J. on May 19, 2010. Due to increases in rebate collections from drug manufacturers, higher utilization of generic drugs, expanded eligibility for enrollment in Medicare Part D’s Low Income Subsidy program and manufacturer discounts in Medicare part D “donut hole”, funding will be available in the fiscal year 2011 budget to keep deductibles and copayments for Senior Gold and the Pharmaceutical Assistance to the Aged and Disabled (PAAD) at preexisting levels, as well as lower PAAD copayments for generic medicines to $5. Press Release: http://www.nj.gov/governor/news/news/552010/approved/20100519c.html (transcript below)
this morning I actually have some good news to pass on to you, so you’re here at a historic event in the Christie administration, actually the Governor getting to tell you something that’s good news, and it applies directly to seniors, and when I was going through the budget cuts, literally the second-to-last cut that I decided on because it was so difficult for me and so contrary to what I wanted to do to try to bring a balanced budget were the changes that we were suggesting to make to the prescription drug programs that apply to seniors, PAAD and Senior Gold, increasing the deductible to $310 and doubling the co-pays on brand-name drugs.
Now I didn’t want to do that and right up until the last minute I kept putting that decision off, and the second-to-last decision I made was that one, to put that cut in the Fiscal Year ’11 budget because I simply couldn’t find the money, and that was the second-to-last cut I made. The education cuts were the last ones I decided on, the two most difficult decisions I felt like I had to make in the budget, but the good news I have for you today is that when we made those decisions we were working off preliminary numbers that we were getting regarding everyone’s use of that program and also it was before federal health care was passed by President Obama and the Congress. Those two changes have allowed me to be able to let all of you know today that I will be sending to the Legislature during this period when we’re allowed to send budget fixes a budget fix that says we will not change PAAD and we will not change Senior Gold one bit.
but this morning I actually have some good news to pass on to you, so you’re here at a historic event in the Christie administration, actually the Governor getting to tell you something that’s good news, and it applies directly to seniors, and when I was going through the budget cuts, literally the second-to-last cut that I decided on because it was so difficult for me and so contrary to what I wanted to do to try to bring a balanced budget were the changes that we were suggesting to make to the prescription drug programs that apply to seniors, PAAD and Senior Gold, increasing the deductible to $310 and doubling the co-pays on brand-name drugs.
Now I didn’t want to do that and right up until the last minute I kept putting that decision off, and the second-to-last decision I made was that one, to put that cut in the Fiscal Year ’11 budget because I simply couldn’t find the money, and that was the second-to-last cut I made. The education cuts were the last ones I decided on, the two most difficult decisions I felt like I had to make in the budget, but the good news I have for you today is that when we made those decisions we were working off preliminary numbers that we were getting regarding everyone’s use of that program and also it was before federal health care was passed by President Obama and the Congress. Those two changes have allowed me to be able to let all of you know today that I will be sending to the Legislature during this period when we’re allowed to send budget fixes a budget fix that says we will not change PAAD and we will not change Senior Gold one bit.
And it’s one of the happiest things I’ve been able to talk about in the first four months I’ve been Governor.
Here’s how we did it:
There are lower drug costs in the program because all of you are using generics more, and so that’s lowered our costs in the program over the last number of months.
Secondly, manufacturers are giving higher rebates to the state when you use their drugs, and that’s accounted for a significant amount of money. Higher rebates from the pharmaceutical companies have allowed us, and we apply for those rebates for it and we get those rebates back in the state in the program. We’ve gotten much more money back in from the manufacturers than we thought we would.
Third, because of changes to Medicare Part D and the open enrollment to an expanded universe of people, that reduces the amount of people and the amount of money that we have to use in the PAAD program, so that’s been a significant help when they changed Medicare D…
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