Medicare drug benefit leads NACDS agenda

Drug Store News, June 9, 2003 by James Frederick

"Pharmacy is always the easiest target" for public and private insurers, and mail order pharmacies are a growing threat, said Rich Cognetti, president and chief executive of Kinney Drugs in upstate New York. But pharmacy has found its voice in the debate over Medicare and health care costs, and NACDS "has been a much bigger help" in state-level lobbying efforts recently, Cognetti told Drug Store News.

"As an industry, we haven't always done that good a job in telling our story," added Jeff Rein, president and chief operating officer at Walgreen Co. "But we're getting better. We absolutely have to get across the point that if people don't take their medications properly, ... health care costs will actually rise.

Larry Kocot, NACDS senior vice president and general counsel, also expressed a quiet confidence in the industry's long-term prospects in the face of its big present-day challenges. "A lot of people in Congress support our position in the Medicare drug debate, said Kocot, "and we've demonstrated our ability to be an effective [lobbying] force."