Shifting Drug Prices Muddy Medicare Card Choice

On May 3, the first day Medicare beneficiaries could sign up for the discount cards, Pharmacy Care Alliance's Web site offered to fill that prescription for $85.43, 13.4 percent more than the price in the booklet.

On May 14, the drug shot up again -- this time, to $89.03, a 6 percent jump.

"There's kind of a dual dynamic that's happening here," Littlejohn said.

First, he said, drug manufacturer Merck & Co. Inc. had raised the price of Vioxx 4.8 percent after the booklet went to press in March. (A Merck spokeswoman confirmed that the price went up March 31.)

Second, rebates Pharmacy Care Alliance had been negotiating with Merck had not been finalized when the booklet went to press. Nonetheless, the booklet listed the lower, discounted prices that were anticipated for Vioxx and dozens of drugs, Littlejohn said.

Asked why the card program would publish prices that had not been finalized, Littlejohn said: "This is an important way of being transparent as we possibly can. . . . It gives people a sense of the ballpark" prices.

Littlejohn promised in an interview last week that prices would be lowered as soon as the rebates were finalized. And they were.

Yesterday, that 30-day supply of Vioxx was selling for $80.13, a 10 percent drop in a single week. Even so, the price was $4.80 higher than the one quoted in the booklet and $2.14 more than the price offered yesterday by Drugstore.com.