New discount health card available in Lorain

Posted in health
by Alicia Castelli

LORAIN — Mayor Tony Krasienko announced Monday the city is endorsing a discount card that could save users an average of 38 percent on their prescriptions and higher percentages on lab tests and imaging services.

“This will mean significant savings for the uninsured and the underinsured,” Krasienko said at a press conference.

Lorain Mayor Tony Krasienko holds some of the discount medical cards for uninsured city residents. (Photo by Bruce Bishop, The Chronicle-Telegram.)

Coast2Coast Rx is a company that brokers arrangements with pharmacies and labs across the country to offer services and medication at discounts. Lorain will be its first foray into Ohio, said Edward Rahn, president of Financial Marketing Concepts Inc., the Florida company that markets the Coast2Coast discount card.

Jeffrey Lewis, president of the Heinz Family Philanthropies, put Krasienko in touch with Rahn.

The free discount card can be picked up at city government offices, pharmacies and doctor’s offices throughout Lorain, Rahn said, adding that it can also be downloaded from the Internet at Coast2CoastRx.com.

“We’re pleased to have brought the city of Lorain and Coast2Coast together,” Lewis said. “This is another project to bring savings to individuals in the city and across the country.”

Rahn said in a time when employers are cutting back on health coverage, the Coast2Coast card will save residents on medications not covered by their insurance, such as Viagra, birth control and dermatology creams, as well as help those who don’t have any insurance at all. It can even be used for prescriptions for the family pet.

“Twenty to thirty percent of the population doesn’t have insurance,” he said, adding Coast2Coast offers discounts on 60,000 medications.

“This will enable people to put some money back into their pockets,” Krasienko said.

Community Health Partners, Family Health and Dentistry and nonprofit services agencies and several area pharmacies are all participating, Krasienko said.

“As a community that has a poverty rate of 18 percent, we know we have a large donut hole in lack of coverage — residents who don’t qualify for government plans and who don’t have existing plans. The working poor. This fills a large need in our community. It’s incumbent upon us to get that affordability to everyone.”

Contact Alicia Castelli at 329-7144 or acastelli@chroniclet.com.