Travis County Commissioners Court
March 3, 2009,
Item 31
31.
receive report on the naco prescription discount card from marc hamlin, district clerk of brazos county and immediate past president of the national association of counties.
immediate past president of the national association of counties.
mr.
hamlynn, welcome, thanks for visiting with us.
>> judge, Commissioners, thank you all very much for allowing me to come into orange county.
i want to let you know that I have got good news and bad news, I will start off with the bad news.
bad news is I'm an aggie.
>> did you say orange county.
>> because of being orange and white and me coming from a maroon and white county, I want you to know that was a bad news.
the good news is my daughter is a junior at the university of Texas.
so I knew that they are -- would garner some support.
ladies and gentlemen, judge, you just made a comment a little while ago about the social workers, that they talk very little and work a whole lot.
well, I'm a politician, I talk a whole lot and work very little.
so ...
i want you to know that serving in the capacity on the national level with the national association of counties in many different aspects, it's a great honor to have served also as the Texas association of county's president.
i will tell you a little story.
my wife and I the night I had been sworn in as tac president, I said baby in your wildest dreams did you ever think that you would be going to bed with the Texas association of county's president and she said no because you are not my wildest dream.
>> [laughter] now, adding a little bit of humor to what I'm about to give you to in this presentation, judge and Commissioners, I want you to know that this morning is a very, very happy thing, it's a win-win situation.
but the most people that it benefits is your constituents.
this program is a -- no cost to the county.
i want to repeat that.
this is a no cost to your county.
brazos county has been a participate for about 14 months.
the program is a program that is a discount card.
i liken it to a coupon that you receive in the Sunday paper.
you carry the card to any prescription facility, whichever one that you choose, most, I will say all in brazos county, even the independent pharmacies have this program to where you are on an average of anyone that does not have insurance for prescriptions that you save an average of 20%.
now, when you say 20%, let me give you some statistics, brazos county, college station, population 160, Travis County population 970,000 plus.
brazos county, in the last month, set a new record, we are recovering and giving back to the citizens of the county, 20% on prescriptions, which came out to a little over $43,000.
over the last 14 months, brazos county has returned to its citizens $407,979.34.
ladies and gentlemen, this is a revolutionary project.
this is a prescription card that requires nothing other than a citizen to be a citizen of your county.
that's all that -- that's all that it requires.
there is no indiana against issue, there is no -- there is no income level that it -- that it applies to.
-- indigency issue.
it applies across the board to everyone who applies for the card.
what does it cost.
i told you it doesn't cotulla Travis County or brazos county anything.
the only cost is that it require that you are a member of the national association of counties, which you already are.
brazos county with an investment of $2,980, 14 months ago, recovered in the first month $2,980 investment the first month recovered over $7,000.
what I say to you is that if there is a drawback to this program, I'm not for sure of what it is.
i have these cards from brazos county.
these of course will say Travis County whenever you become a member of the prescription card program.
this is what you present at each of the pharmacies that you so choose.
now what do you have to sign up?
no.
one of the things that people who are concerned about well what is my information, am I going to get a lot of e-mails, trash e-mails, going to start getting this mass amount of mailings that are coming through the -- through the mailbox.
no.
absolutely not.
your information is kept secure with the program.
it is not distributors sold to anyone else.
this program is a card that you use per family.
whenever you presents the card, that's all that you do is present the card.
your address by the description will have your address so that they will know that you're a member of the Travis County that they are a resident of the county.
i wanted to talk to you real quick because you have a neighboring county, Travis County.
population, I'm not for sure of exactly the population, I think it's about 340,000 of Williamson county.
last month alone Williamson county recovered over $47,000 in one month.
that was given back to the citizens at nothing other than for them to walk in a pharmacy and present the card.
i have talked quite a bit.
i get to go and tell people about the program, I like to tell you about the success of brazos county to let I know that brazos county leads Texas.
i will tell you that I have made this presentation in front of tarrant, dallas, harris which all have become members.
i will tell you not one of those counties, even though they have over a million and harris has over four million, no one has been able to touch brazos county to this point.
so I want to open myself, I'm sure there's questions out there that each of you may have.
i want to be able to answer anything.
i want the hard questions, I want to be able to answer you as best you know how.
judge I will turn it back to you and ask you if you have any questions.
>> I have a couple.
do any court members have questions?
>> I have a couple.
i wield to you after yours.
>> okay.
so would the -- we are a member of it already.
>> yes, sir.
>> we would not have to sign a contract or anything.
>> yes, sir.
that is one of the requirements that each county is required to do.
>> all right.
>> that contract obligates us to do what?
>> the contract is -- I'm not an attorney, so I can't very well vouch for what all it does.
it does not obligate you to do anything except that the 30 day out clause for each of naco and for Travis County would be applicable.
the contract is mostly a hold harmless agreement for both sides.
where anybody could -- of course me being the district clerk I know that anyone can file suit for anything.
but it's just a hold harmless hopefully for both sides so that naco doesn't hold Travis County nor does Travis County hold naco responsible for anything that may come out of any court trials or anything, any type of allegations.
there has been some questions in the past about -- about what the county's participation and liability would be.
and, judge, there is absolutely nothing in the contract that would -- that would hold the county in any way, shape or form responsible for anything because, judge, I -- I promise you, I understand today's times again about people being able to sue.
but all that you are is providing people with a means to be able to get a discount with a card.
there is nothing that -- that is -- that is, you know -- obligatory on your part as a governing body that I have been able to determine over the past 14 months, actually over a year and a half when I first learned about the program.
i just tell you that the contract is very simple.
i know that your attorneys would want to look at it.
i would encourage them to before it came to a vote.
>> okay.
so those who don't have insurance if they are Travis County residents would be able to use this card to get a discount on medication?
>> yes, sir.
let me tell you, judge, I want to give you some examples of the things that I have incurred.
i want to tell you that one of the biggest groups that we have been able to determine that use the card is actually the students of Texas a&m university.
we also -- we also have people that go to get their prescriptions and -- and the -- this happened to one of the professors at a&m that actually went to a pharmacy, presented the card, the pharmacy says you know what, we have our own discount card here, let us see which one is the most -- what's the best for you.
and of course they are on blue cross blue shield and they went through testing whether the card was cheaper, their own card was cheaper, or if the co-pay was cheaper with blue cross blue shield.
with the card at brazos county they say $13.
without using blue cross and blue shield.
so it doesn't -- it doesn't replace but sometimes it's better that even if you have insurance sometimes it's better to use the card simply because that it is a cheaper rate than if you use your co-pay for your insurance.
>> okay.
so three circumstances, one is if you don't have insurance you can use this card.
>> that is usually the most widely used.
>> if you have insurance but -- but this card gives you a better deal, you can use this card?
>> yes, sir.
>> of course if your insurance doesn't cover a certain medication, you can use this card to get the medication.
>> good point, thank you for bringing that up, judge.
>> what about exclusivity.
will the county bound itself to insurance plus only this card, no other -- no other discount?
-- no other programs or projects.
>> absolutely not.
i encourage you to find other means of discounts.
-- if they provide more money back to the individual, judge, that's exactly what this program is about.
we want you to compare the programs and sometimes even -- I didn't realize this, that the pharmacies actually have -- have a -- have a discount rate for people that pay cash.
i didn't understand that, but all pharmacies do that apparently.
so if you have your discount rate in cash and it saves you more money, saves you 30% instead of 20% on average, then of course you would want to use the 30% for -- for the pharmacy that you are using.
so judge, we -- it does not -- it is not exclusive in any way, shape or form.
>> no, sir, that's a good question.
>> my final question is that -- that if we have follow-up questions, need to follow-up information.
are you the person to contact?
>> you can either contact me or your contact which I will be with in -- in -- in washington d.c.
this -- this Friday.
i have been asked to come to d.c.
and do a little bit of I guess kind of explaining why brazos county and the state of Texas is so successful with such a small population.
andrew goldsmith with the national association of counties is -- I think he has had numerous contacts, I'm not sure exactly who he has talked to here in Travis County.
but andrew is the one that is administrator over the prescription card on the national level.
>> okay.
Commissioner Davis?
>> thank you, judge.
how are you doing today?
>> good morning, thank you, good.
thank you all again for letting me come here today.
>> you're quite welcome.
somewhere along the line there has to be an information based format.
meaning if you were able to track folks the money that they were saving for folks that used this particular discount card, there had to be some data base or something that would be -- that had to -- had to be around to track that kind of information.
i don't think that -- no one would be able to just randomly say these are the number of persons used this card this is the result of the discounts offered to the person using those cards.
so my question to you is where is that data base maintained, who maintains it?
>> it is housed with the national association of counties and contracted with care
>> [indiscernible] the administrating company that is supporting the documentation gathering the data that is housed.
again, that information -- go ahead, Commissioner.
>> well, I just wanded to make sure that privacy and i.d., a whole bunch of other things are very paramount now.
i want to make sure that ever -- that whoever is in control of that data base that it is under the strictest security.
-- those persons may want to know information that may be contributed to that purchase of prescriptions in other words kind of like a privacy type of thing.
-- Commissioner that is absolutely one of the very best questions that I have ever had, thank you very much.
it goes back to what judge Biscoe asked a portion in his questions, he asked something to the effect about the contract that is a part of the contract as well to make sure that the county residents are protected protected from any of that information being disseminated to anyone, no one has -- has that information.
that information in numbers only, not with -- not with personal information of the individuals, is -- is distributed monthly so that you will have a monthly report of how many prescriptions have been affected in Travis County and it has -- it has -- and I'm not for sure of excel spread sheet how many actually different line items have been disseminated for you.
but it tells you how much money has been saved on a monthly basis.
>> so the record itself within the -- within the records -- within the data base itself only has information -- only has information as far as the -- the person that -- they have to have an address to be considered a resident.
that's two things that I see.
name and also residents, so that's two -- that's two fields in the record right there.
are those -- the purchase I guess.
the discount rate or whatever because you need another field there to see the amount since you will know the amount.
right now I can see address, the person's name and also the amount of the savings of the person using the card.
those are three field right there on that record.
>> yes, sir.
>> I hope -- I don't know if there's anything else on that particular record, for that -- I hope before -- within that record, data base.
>> yes, sir.
to be honest with you, Commissioner, that is all that is gathered and all of the -- these cards are all -- are random.
i will say random in that you only go and pick these cards up.
you don't sign anything to get them.
you don't put any information down about -- about you in particular.
all you do is that they are setting on the countser and actually you can go in and pull one every time that you wanted to go in instead of saving a card, you could go and pull a different one every time if that's what you wanted to do.
that information is secure, it's in the contract that it is secure.
>> okay.
second question is the universal usage of the -- of the card itself.
the question is -- are all of the pharmacists that are within Travis County or wherever, would they -- would they -- would these particular pharmacists be -- be -- be in -- in compliance or be made available to the persons that have the discounted cards?
>> yes, sir.
>> they have all -- they all have agreed, some big agreement out there somewhere that if this card has to be accepted by any pharmacist within -- within I guess within Travis County.
>> let me -- let me -- yes, sir.
that is -- that is the -- and let me explain where I come from, I was born in a small town of crockett, Texas.
>> I know where crockett is, I have been to crockett, Texas.
>> that's actually houston county.
my grandmother when I was a little boy because I would spend the summers with my grandmother, she was on medicare or mayor kirk -- or mer medicare.
she would cut her pills in half, she said this will get grandma to the end of the month to be able to buy my prescriptions.
what this encourage is people not to cut their prescriptions in half.
i don't know if you all know this or not, but it still is a practice today.
people do not have enough money to be able to pay for all of the prescriptions that they need.
and so my grandmother, I -- that's the reason it's so close to my heart.
i know there's a lot of people out there that need help.
this encourages them because of the -- because of the savings and the discount that they get to go ahead and buy more of their prescriptions.
the other thing that the other pharmacies -- I included the pharmacies in brazos county, I sent out even to the independents, I said I want you to come to the press conference just like we are sitting in this arena today, I wanted them to come to the press conference so that I would be able to explain to them what it is that they are going to be expected to do.
what the program is and what they have to do because they had reservations, how much more time is this going to take us, cost us, so on, so forth.
my thing was I invited them and got them committed and they had a vested interest from the very beginning and do you know that the pharmacies have come back to me, not all of 'em, but a lot of times you don't hear the good news.
the pharmacies have come back to me and says you don't realize how much traffic it has increased within my fault because people now are coming in, they are buying their prescriptions with the savings, they are buying some of their toiletries or whatever it is that they are retail merchandise that they have there, because they are saving people more money and they are able to spend more money at their pharmacy.
so the answer to your question, everyone, especially the large corporations and without advertising for any one of the others, even the discount sam's club, wal-mart, cvs, I'm not sure what all the other ones are, but all of them are participants.
>> they say that nothing is free.
and -- and then the question is if the discount one is available, then you would have to pay -- for that discount that's not available.
>> yes, sir.
>> my question is where -- where does the difference come from as far as the money.
as far as the money that's advertise counted, where is the source of that funding?
>> between the pharmaceutical companies and individual incorporations, the pharmacies.
>> the pharmaceutical company is allowing the discounts?
>> yes, sir, pharmacies and pharmaceuticals, I'm not sure exactly the breakdown.
different medicines cost different amounts.
they give different amounts on each and every individual one.
but that's exactly where the discount comes from.
>> okay.
well, I'm -- the source of funding -- pharmaceutical if -- percentage I guess is something else.
>> yes, sir.
>> and with that question, I'm going to conclude, let's say a person has an existing insurance card.
and -- and the citizens -- the court decide to support this.
and the citizens -- a citizen of Travis County go into a pharmacy, and they present the discount card along with -- with an existing insurance card, would they get both discounts?
>> no, sir.
>> just one.
>> just one.
>> whichever one is greater.
>> you can make a comparison, which one, it's an either/or situation.
if you have an insurance card, if this discount is greater than the insurance card that you have, that you are carrying now, well, you get that -- you use whichever one I guess at your discretion.
>> yes, sir, very good question Commissioner.
that's exactly what -- we encourage you if these pharmacies are -- these individual companies have a better discount rate card.
by all means use the best that you can.
whatever saves you the most money.
i will end with that.
>> all right.
the folks that do not have the card, insurance card at all of course it would be an advantage to them because of the fact that they would get that discount from the pharmacist by issuing this with the court's support.
>> yes, sir.
>> that's any final question.
>> Commissioner Huber?
>> thank you.
>> it looks to me like I have heard you say it's a national chain.
can our local and independent pharmacies be competitive with this program?
>> absolutely.
great question.
in fact they are encouraged to do so because again the story about the pharmacies coming back and explaining to me how it has increased their traffic in the door.
it has increased their retail sales.
even though that they have had -- actually in brazos county have seen an increase with the individual pharmacies of business simply because the discount card is a way to give back to the people, Travis County, brazos county, the counties do not receive.
naco does not receive any money from this.
Travis County does not receive any money from this.
all of this money goes directly back to the citizen that walks up and buys the prescription.
>> that was also a point of clarification I wanted to ask.
if the discounts is at point of sale, is that correct.
>> yes, ma'am.
>> I will have a couple or three questions of legal.
my request is that we have this back on the court's agenda in two weeks.
we looked at this matter about a year ago and had some questions.
the answers may have changed a little bit.
but two weeks will give us an opportunity to mull over it and get with staff and try to figure out where to go.
we certainly appreciate your coming up today.
we do not need you in two weeks, but if you happen to be in town and come by and say hello.
>> I have been spending quite a bit of time at the big building over on what is that, 14th street?
let me just end with -- let me tell you a couple of things.
this has -- Travis County actually came up simply because that I felt like our state's capital, when I say that the state's capital was not a member I thought well, why would our state's capital, especially having Williamson county as a next door neighbor recovering almost $50,000 a month, and their population is one third, it just made sense to me to make the presentation today.
the next thing I want to tell you that the story nanette that in -- there's a lady that works at the Texas association of counties.
and she came to me and said that her pet actually has meds, has a heart condition.
of all things the required medication for her dog that has a heart issue is viagra.
it costs her -- yes, ma'am.
>> [laughter] yes, ma'am.
viagra costs this lady for her pet $120 a month.
for her, to present the card for her pet, which it does include pet medications, she now pays $80 or would pay, but she's a citizen of Travis County, she would get $40 off that prescription.
the next thing that they are about to embark on is that the naco prescription card will not be the only discount that this program will cover.
it will start covering vision and dental in the near future.
so this is more money going back to the people, that has nothing to do with ingdigency, has nothing to do with whether or not you have more money than you know what to do with or you're homeless.
it has to do with the fact of whether you are a citizen of Travis County or not.
the other thing that other counties have taken advantage of is that, judge, they have actually applied this to -- to their jail.
and some of the counties have -- enjoy a discounts program already.
within their jail, but some others don't and they use the card.
so -- so, Commissioner, I know that you have a question.
>> when you return, if you can, find this out for me, if -- if it's available, if not, don't worry about it.
but, you know, as you said, we increase activity going on in the pharmacy itself.
again, when people are in that type of location regardless of which one they are in, there are other things being sold there other than pharmaceutical.
so there has to be -- to be probably a -- an offset for the discount with the -- with probably the sales of other items and goods.
and -- and within that pharmaceutical location it would be good to know what that -- what that even though the --
>> percent of increase.
>> whether the pharmaceutical is offering this, there has to be increased sales on other items being sold in that particular location.
that would be good to know what the increase in sales are since persons have increased activities going to those pharmaceuticals.
>> I will get back with you personally on that.
>> maybe balance off the discount.
>> all right.
judge?
>> if we could get you to give your card to -- right there at the end of the dais.
>> judge, I have one more thing, I will close.
>> one more.
>> just one more then.
>> I want to let you know why is the district clerk of brazos county administering this, I didn't say the county clerk, why isn't one of the Commissioners court.
this was a lot of work and our Commissioners court didn't really even wants to become a part of the national association of counties.
until they told me that they need to recover that $2,980.
i want you to know as brazos county district clerk politically this has been one of the biggest things for me personally simply because the people out there are recovering over $40,000 a month and within -- within a year and two months over $400,000.
so I wanted to encourage you that -- that if I can help in any way in the future, I will be more man happy to, I will be glad -- more than happy to, I will be glad to give you my card, judge.
>> give it to marry yet take maa up down there.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 3, 2009 2:17 PM