The Maryland Health Advocacy Alliance and the Monumental City Medical Society , are opposing a Medicaid preferred drug list proposed by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene - MHAA - MCMS - DHMH - State News in Brief - Brief Article

Drug Cost Management Report, Jan, 2003

* The Maryland Health Advocacy Alliance (MHAA) and the Monumental City Medical Society (MCMS), are opposing a Medicaid preferred drug list proposed by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH). Members of the two groups rallied at a public hearing last month to testify against the proposal.

Supported by survey results showing 77% of Maryland residents are opposed to the list, MHAA Management Consultant Marilyn Edmunds argued that the list would severely limit access to medications for patients within each therapeutic class, and that this "cost-cutting measure" would be taken without the consideration of possible long-term, negative effects on Maryland's Medicaid population. MCMS President Trudy Hall, MD, who serves many Medicaid patients in Baltimore, voiced concerns over the effects on the state's substantial African-American population. Also present was Linda Boyer, executive director of the Maryland-Greater Washington, DC chapter of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, who agreed with Edmunds that DHMH was more concerned with the short-term cost benefits than the long-term health of Maryland Medicaid residents. Information: Marilyn Edmunds, MHAA, (410) 740-7078.