I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
RIO RANCHO — New Mexico will get $100,000 from a multi-state $9.5 million settlement reached this week with Express Scripts, a pharmacy benefits manager.
Express Scripts Inc. on Tuesday announced it will pay $9.5 million in an agreement with 28 states that alleged the pharmacy benefits manager misled consumers when it encouraged doctors to switch patients’ cholesterol drug brands under the guise of controlling costs, the Associated Press reported.
A portion of the $100,000 New Mexico will receive will go toward benefitting low-income, disabled or elderly consumers who use prescription medication, said Lynn Southard of the New Mexico Attorney General’s office.
The agreement resolving a four-year investigation of St. Louis-based Express Scripts follows a similar $38.5 million multistate settlement in February with a rival benefits manager, Caremark, and a 2004 drug-switching settlement with Medco Health Solutions Inc., the news service reported.
Express Scripts said in a press release that it will pay $9.3 million of the settlement total to the states and the District of Columbia. Another $200,000 will provide no more than $25 apiece to individual patients to reimburse them for physician visits and tests linked to switches between rival brands of cholesterol-controlling drugs known as statins.
In addition to New Mexico, Massachusetts, Missouri and Washington, D.C., the participants in the settlement are: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.
The same states were involved in February’s settlement with Caremark’s parent company, Woonsocket, R.I.-based CVS Caremark Corp.
