A new prescription drug discount card promised by Gov. Katie Hobbs is now available to all Arizonans. It’s called the ArrayRx program. It’s free to any Arizona resident and offers savings of about 18% on brand-name prescriptions — and as much as 80% off generic drugs.
According to the governor’s office, the discount card covers FDA-approved prescriptions, including mail-order and specialty drugs.
Patients still need a prescription and can sign up for the card online. The card is meant for people without drug coverage and can’t be combined with insurance. Arizona joins at least four other states already participating in the ArrayRx program.
About the discount card
Who can use it: Any Arizona resident can use the discount card. A valid Arizona address is required to enroll. Each family member needs their own digital ArrayRx Discount Card. There is no age limit or income restriction.What is the cost: Free enrollment with no member fees. What is covered: All FDA-approved drugs and some over-the-counter drugs and diabetes supplies. Includes mail-order and specialty drugs.Where to use it: Valid at most pharmacies nationwide, with a network of over 64,000 locations. Currently 1,184 participating pharmacies in Arizona. Find a pharmacy here.Restrictions: Does not cover prescription drugs for animals. Cannot be used in combination with insurance or other discount cards (choose whichever offers greater savings).
How to sign up and use your discount card
Sign up for free here.Download or print your digital card.Show the card to your pharmacist at the checkout to receive your discount.
Hear Howard Fischer on The Show with host Mark Brodie
Full conversation:
MARK BRODIE: So how exactly will this ArrayRx card work?
HOWARD FISCHER: It’s very similar to some other programs are already out there. There’s something called, for example, GoodRx. And what you do is you sign up — it doesn’t cost anything to sign up — and you’ll get a card, which can be used virtually or online. And what this card allows you to do is go into a pharmacy and say, “OK, I don’t have insurance, or my insurance won’t cover certain things. What can you give me?”
And what ArrayRx has done and what GoodRx and these other programs have done is they’ve negotiated a deal with a lot of pharmacies to say, “Look, we will get some business your way, but you will have to provide some sort of discount.” And there are apparently enough of them around and several major pharmacies like Walmart and Walgreens for example that have agreed to go ahead and take this.
Now you can also check in online if you’re already registered with one of these cards and you can look up, “OK, I need Lovastatin for my cholesterol. Where can I find it in my neighborhood, and what are they charging?”
BRODIE: Well, so Howie, I guess this begs the question, if there are other cards that already do this sort of thing, what is the benefit of one that Arizona and a few other states are sort of guiding here?
FISCHER: Well, that’s the first question I asked when this was announced. I said, “Why are we getting involved with this?” And the basic answer is maybe we think we can negotiate better prices,, because we’re run by the states, and also that we won’t sell your data. The concern is that if you’re just signing up with somebody else that you find online, they’re going to say, great, we’ll give you a deal.
And by the way, you’re going to get a lot of really interesting emails and you’re going to get on a lot of lists. And they have promised they’re not going to do that.
BRODIE: OK, and Howie, this came about in at least in some part because sort of a bigger proposal that Gov. Hobbs had this past year really didn’t get any traction. Is that right?
FISCHER: Exactly. She had made a massive proposal about capping drug prices. It would have created a prescription Drug Affordability and Transparency Board, which would determine what companies could charge for their drugs.
She actually never introduced that. She couldn’t get it off the ground. Eva Burch, who was then a Democratic state senator for Mesa, did sponsor a narrow version to require these pharmacy benefit managers —the companies that purchase the drugs for insurance companies, they go to customers — to get approval for state prices.
That bill never got a hearing. And that’s not surprising because the Legislature’s controlled by Republicans, and they see this should be basically free enterprise.
What’s also interesting, however, is that the president has launched his own Trump Rx program. You know, always has to have the word Trump on it. And this is actually based a little differently, where if you enroll in that, they’re negotiating specific prices with companies like Pfizer, and the consumer would go directly to the manufacturer and bypass the retailer.
So there’s a lot of interest in this whole issue here of how do you get more affordable drugs. As we’ve heard over and over on national news, the U.S. has some of the highest prices on drugs. Some of that may be because we do testing here, and some of that is because other countries have price controls.
So I think everybody’s looking for a way to help consumers to deal with the fact that you ideally don’t want to have to choose between taking the drugs and buying dinner.
BRODIE: So does Gov. Hobbs or her office have any estimates as to how many people in Arizona they expect to enroll in this?
FISCHER: Well, they’re not exactly sure because of the fact that, again, there’s no requirement to enroll. They just put out the press release yesterday and just made it available online. So we’ll have to follow up with that. The question becomes, should you? I mean, for most people who have good insurance, it may not be necessary.
If you can already get your coverage for $3 for three months for, let’s say again, the Lovastatin, there’s no reason. But there’s also no reason not to enroll, again, because of the fact that you may be reaching the end of your benefit year, or the drug in the formulary of, let’s say, UnitedHealthcare.
And so it wouldn’t be surprising if, in fact, you’ve got a couple hundred thousand Arizonans who do enroll. But again, we won’t know that for a couple of months.
BRODIE: Do we have a sense of what enrollment has looked like in the other states that are also using this?
FISCHER: They claim it’s very good. We haven’t got specific numbers in terms of what that means. Obviously, their governors who are involved with their programs want them to sound good. It’s always good for PR, and we have a governor here who’s running for reelection. And this allows her to show, “See, I’ve done something about prescription drug prices,” even if it doesn’t specifically involve the state per se or anything that she had to get through the Legislature.
But it’s a very popular thing. Again, it may not do much, depending on what kind of insurance coverage you have, depending on what drugs you’re taking, but it can’t hurt to enroll. And then you get one of these nice little cards that you can put in your wallet and next time you go over to your Walgreens and say, “OK, here’s what you want to charge me. What’s the discount for using the ArrayRX card?”
BRODIE: All right. We’ll see how popular it turns out to be here in Arizona.
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