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2005 State Pharmaceutical and Medicare Coordination Legislation

Updated September 2006  

In the two years following the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act (MMA) becaming law more than 90 percent of the states entered into the process of adjusting or coordinating existing state pharmaceutical programs and policy to better fit with features of the MMA. That law created a far-reaching and complex set of pharmaceutical benefits within the Medicare program. The MMA imposed a tight timeline, with numerous dates affecting states and the public.  Four key examples include:

1. On October 1, commercial plans began marketing to Medicare beneficiaries;
2. On November 15, 2005 public enrollment in Part D plans began;
3. On January 1, 2006 Medicare federal benefits began, including transfer of many Medicaid enrollees to Medicare.¹
4. May 15, 2006 was the deadline for most Medicare eligibles to enroll in a Medicare Part D plan without incurring a premium surcharge equal to 1 percent per month.

Many states already have made some changes in law or regulations, to allow residents to take advantage of federal benefits, and tackle questions of overlapping services or funding issues.

As of December 31, 2005, at least 43 states had considered more than 130 bills and resolutions in 2005 that propose some type of policy change.  Note that the bills listed below use a variety of approaches, and may apply to 2005 and/or 2006 and beyond.

In 2005, laws were signed in 33 states - Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

To find out more by reading the full report (18 pages), please go to http://www.ncsl.org/print/health/2005-MMAbills-NCSL.pdf.  [18 pages] Download PDF Version.   To read portable document format (.pdf) files, you must install Adobe Acrobat Reader.

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