With roughly $2 billion in losses this year, big insurance companies are pulling out of the Obamacare (ACA) health-care exchange program and along with pulling out, insurance companies, Express Scripts and Caremark, that supply medications for millions of citizens, are dropping coverage for dozens of medications in 2017.
The news was reported on GoodRx, a company that helps consumers find and compare medication prices at local and online pharmacies that the nation’s largest insurance companies will likely exclude up to 154 different drugs from coverage.
Elizabeth Davis of GoodRx said, “If you’re taking one of these prescriptions, your co-pay is about to go way, way up.”
Davis continued and said, “Who’s removing these drugs? Express Scripts and Caremark, companies that handle pharmacy benefits for more than 200 million Americans, are once again removing drugs from their national preferred formularies. Other pharmacy benefit managers will likely announce similar restrictions in the coming weeks.”
Davis reported that between Express Scripts and Caremark, the largest drop of excluding about 40 new drugs, for a total of around 130 will be from Caremark while Express Scripts is only restricting 5 new drugs in 2017, for a total of about 85 that they will not cover.
As Zachary Tracer of Bloomberg News, with insurance companies dropping out of the Obamacare exchanges and now the elimination of dozens of prescription medications, stated, “The bottom line… Obamacare has no authority to force insurance companies to offer plans; faced with mounting losses, they’re pulling out.”
The drugs being dropped and the covered alternatives for 2017 can be found here for Express Scripts list here and the Caremark list here.