Walmart Drives to Lower Drug Prescription Prices

According to Employee Benefit News, Walmart has joined the fight to help lower drug costs by expanding it's low cost prescription program. This bold move will assist employers by helping to lower their costs as well.

In September, Walmart made the announcement that a second tier pricing program in their $4 prescription drug program would be offering three women's medications-generic versions of the birth-control pill Ortho Cyclen and Ortho Tri-Cyclen as well as the fertility drug, Clomiphene at the cost of $9.00.

Walmart's move will save the average woman $15 to $21 dollars a month on prescriptions.Approximately 89% of working women have coverage for contraceptives. That would mean there are many more not able to access these drugs without much expense.

Women are a large part of the workforce in America. Walmart's goal is to provide affordable drugs to them. 82% of this workforce use some type of contraceptive. With the insurance program designed for Walmart employees, all medications in their plan are only $10.

Most states require insurance policies to cover contraceptative drugs if they cover other medications. The law is open to interpretation obviously though. Employers can refuse to pay for these because of religious or moral issues. This appears to be convienence for the employer.

Walmart feels employers should step up to the plate and do what is right for their employees. It is the employers responsibility to help provide medical coverage that helps their employees.

Walmart originally introduced it's Drug Prescription Plan in September 2006. Initially, it had 291 generic varieties of drugs at the very reasonable cost of $4 each. Since then, they have added 24 new prescriptions, including the oral contraceptives for $9 and $4 drug prescriptions for glaucoma, cardiac arrest, fungal conditions and other conditions as well.

Walmart now has a total of 361 prescription products are available with their completion of phase two of the program.