By Woodrow Polston
Mayors, commissioners and other county officials gathered at the Audrain County Sheriff’s Department last week for a monthly municipalities meeting. During the meeting, Eastern District Commissioner Leslie Meyer introduced a new health program that has been made available to Audrain County residents. She discussed the benefits of the program with those in attendance.
“This is a new program that we have just been made aware of in the past week,” said Meyer. “Municipalities have organizations that you can belong to, and counties do as well. One of those organizations is the Missouri Association of Counties. Another one is the National Association of Counties. As a county commission, we have been very involved with both organizations. After the discovery of a large disparity between what we pay for insurance and the rising cost of prescription medicines, the National Association of Counties sent out an initiative for all members called the ‘Live Healthy Counties’ initiative. This is open to any resident in Audrain County and does not only apply to employees of the county or cities within the county. We are giving away pamphlets that have these new prescription drug cards inside. They will save you up to 40% on name brand prescriptions and as much as 80 % on generics. This card can be presented to any pharmacy in the Mexico area and will help cover whatever your insurance does not cover,” she added.
According to livehealthycard.com, The Live Healthy Discount Program is made available in a joint effort by participating county, parish and borough governments, and the National Association of Counties. It offers savings on prescriptions and services to support individuals and families. You may present your discount card at a participating retain pharmacy along with your prescription(s) and save an average of 24 percent of you prescription drugs. Health discounts are available for a wide range of services and supplies for one low monthly or annual cost. Discounts available on vision, hearing, diabetic supplies, lab services and diagnostic imaging at no additional cost.
“These brochures we are handing out have the card attached inside,” said Carl Donaldson, Audrain County emergency management director. “You will need to have one for each member of your household. We also have display cases for the brochures that can be taken back to city halls. The good news is that I am not aware of any local pharmacy that is not already participating in this program,” he added.
Residents can access prescription benefits at more than 65,000 pharmacies across the country. The health and dental benefits are honored by more than 110,000 participating providers nationwide. Meyer said that there is no additional cost to the county to utilize this program.
“There is no additional cost to the county. The cost is factored in as part of our membership with the National Association of Counties. We pay to be members and part of that cost is reflected with this program,” said Meyer.