NOTE: As provided in LFC policy, this report is
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SPONSOR: |
Picraux |
DATE TYPED: |
|
HB |
666/aHBIC/aHAFC |
||
SHORT TITLE: |
Reporting of Prescription Drug Information |
SB |
|
||||
|
ANALYST: |
Weber |
|||||
APPROPRIATION
Appropriation
Contained |
Estimated
Additional Impact |
Recurring or
Non-Rec |
Fund Affected |
||
FY03 |
FY04 |
FY03 |
FY04 |
|
|
|
0.0 |
|
See Narrative |
Recurring |
General
Fund |
(Parenthesis
( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)
Responses
Received From
Regulations
and Licensing-Pharmacy board
Human
Services Department
Health
Policy Commission
SUMMARY
Synopsis of HAFC
Amendment
The House Appropriations and Finance Committee
amendment makes the following changes:
"Section 6. EFFECTIVE DATE.--The effective
date of the provisions of Section 2 of this act is January 1, 2004.". This removes the appropriation and
establishes an effective date.
7.
Renumber the sections to correspond with these amendments.
Significant Issues
There
will be administrative costs involved with such activity and the appropriation
has been deleted. It appears there will
be a vast volume of data to be collected.
The collection method remains unspecified but it must be assumed there
will be systems developed to electronically capture the information. Without an appropriation it may not be
reasonable to assume much progress will be made on this project.
Synopsis
of HBIC Amendment
The
House Business and Industry Committee Amendment to House Bill 666 makes the
following changes.
Section 3. UNLAWFUL
DISCLOSURE--PENALTIES.—
A. It is unlawful for an employee, former employee, contractor or former
contractor of the human services department to reveal to another person, except
to another employee or contractor of the department as required by the employee's
or contractor's duties or responsibilities or by state or federal court order,
information acquired pursuant to Section 1 of this act or any other information
about a prescription drug manufacturer acquired as a result of his employment
or contract by the department and not available from public sources.
B. An employee, former employee, contractor or former contractor of the
human services department who reveals to another person information that he is
prohibited from lawfully revealing is guilty of a misdemeanor and shall, upon
conviction thereof, be fined not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000) or
imprisoned not more than one year, or both, together with costs of prosecution,
and shall not be employed by the state for a period of five years after the
date of the conviction.".
Synopsis of Original Bill
House Bill 666 appropriates $25,000 from the
General Fund to the Human Services Department to maintain the following data
furnished by manufacturers of prescription drugs.
In addition, House Bill 666 requires
manufacturers of prescription drugs for sale or consumption in
The Office of the Attorney General is authorized
to take action to investigate and enforce the requirements of House Bill 666.
Significant Issues
HB 666
would require the Human Services Department to receive an immense amount of
data. There are more than 500 drug
manufacturers participating in the Medicaid drug rebate program alone. Each manufacturer may have thousands of
National Drug Code (NDC) numbers involved.
There may be legal ramifications due to proprietary issues involved in
the pricing of all drugs. The purpose of
HB 666 is unclear and the directives to HSD are difficult to determine. There is no directive on what HSD is to do
with the information submitted by the manufacturers.
The
Pharmacy Board reports price changes in
drugs are much like gasoline price changes.
It would be a never-ending job to keep up with the constant price
changes. Regulations would be necessary to impose reporting requirements.
FISCAL
IMPLICATIONS
The appropriation of $25.0 contained in this
bill is a recurring expense to the General Fund. Any unexpended or unencumbered
balance remaining at the end of Fiscal Year 2004 shall revert to the General
Fund.
ADMINISTRATIVE
IMPLICATIONS
The costs associated with collection, storage
and maintenance of such a vast amount of data are not known. Likewise, the level of enforcement will
include expenses for the Attorney General.
There is no provision for these additional costs.
POSSIBLE QUESTIONS
How will this data be
used?
MW/yr/njw:yr