Over the last year I’ve seen an increasing number of city’s promoting the National League of Cities (NLC) prescription discount program for their residents as a way to save them money. At Kent City Council’s request we looked into this program to see if it had value to Kent residents.
We discovered that prescription discount programs are popping up all over the place. I thought that perhaps the National League of Cities had negotiated some unique deal but once we starting checking around it turned out that prescription discount cards are being offered all over the internet and in stores right here in Kent.
The fact that the National League of Cities is a respected industry association lends credibility to their program but we were surprised to see that the types of discounts on common pharmaceutical offered in their program is comparable to discounts found in a number of free on-line discounters.
The discount cards are not a health insurance card but if you’re paying cash out of pocket for prescriptions you should definitely look into them, they can probably save you some money. The City’s HR Manager says that generally these cards can be used if you are uninsured, or your prescription is not covered by your plan so she recommends asking your pharmacy or searching discount prescription cards on line to see what’s available. Many of the cards can be applied for on line and printed right off your computer.
A couple of years ago City Council chose to not renew the City’s membership in the National League of Cities (NLC) as a cost cutting measure (especially since we belong to other professional associations with similar purposes) which means in order to jump on-board the NLC program we’d have to re-join the organization at a cost of $1,500.
When we reported this back to City Council, they suggested that given the wide array of free discount programs out there, perhaps the best option right now was just to help spread the word about the availability of prescription discount programs and let the residents select the one that best fits their needs. So look around and see for yourself:
