Higher Workers' Comp Costs for Fla. Employers are Coming

Monday, March 12, 2012 | 0

The bill to stop outrageous markups on physician-dispensed drugs is all but dead, a victim of a highly effective, and very well-coordinated lobbying and public relations campaign financed by wealthy opponents who used employers' own dollars to kill the bill.

Dispensing companies make tens of millions of profit charging employers twice to six times more for drugs than they would pay a retail pharmacist. A small portion of that money only about $3.4 million has been spent currying political favor, with several hundred thousand dollars finding its way into the coffers of the current Florida Senate president. Mike Haridopolos is using his powers to prevent the bill from coming to the floor, knowing if it does, it has the votes to pass.

This is a big defeat for employers, who will see higher workers comp costs, and tax payers, who are paying for inflated costs for drugs used by injured state workers.

One has to admire the effectiveness of the physician dispensing companies; confronted with an existential threat, they spent whatever they needed to, put together a very impressive disinformation campaign, convinced several probably well-intentioned physicians to take their side, and duped enough legislators to allow Haridopolos to ride off into the sunset retiring with hundreds of thousands of dollars in their contributions still at his disposal.

A colleague recently pointed out that Florida has tried to stop this outrageous profiteering on the backs of employers and taxpayers for three years running, and each year the result has been worse than the year before. Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a cost cap unanimously passed by both houses three sessions ago, and this year we won't even get a vote in the Senate.

For employers and insurers, it is crystal clear that bringing a knife to a gun fight produces an inevitable result.

In what looks to be the very definition of "too little, too late", the Florida Chamber of Commerce is asking its members to email Haridopolos in what looks to be a rather pointless and somewhat pathetic effort to undo what is clearly a done deal.

For now, it's over. Employers lost. Taxpayers lost. Good government lost.

The question is, will the Chamber, insurers, employers, tax payers, and decent politicians learn the lesson, or will we all of us fail again next year.

Joe Paduda is co-owner of CompPharma, a consortium of pharmacy benefit managers, and owner of Health Strategy Associates, an employer consulting firm in Connecticut. This column was reprinted with his permission from his Managed Care Matters blog.