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A plan to cut the cost of Medicaid could also cost thousands of pharmacists their jobs. The plan would require Medicaid patients to fill most of their prescriptions through the mail. As Whitney Ray tells us, the move to mail-in prescriptions could be a coffin nail for some of Florida’s 10-thousand community pharmacies already suffering from the recession.

The Economy Drug Store has been in Alexis McMillan’s family for decades.

“My family has had this pharmacy since 1951,” said Alexis.

But a plan to force Medicaid recipients to receive most of their prescriptions through the mail would make it hard for Alexis to keep the doors open.

“It would be detrimental more so to have less and less traffic coming into the pharmacy,” said Alexis.

Economy Drug Store is just one of 10-thousand community pharmacies fighting the mail order prescription plan. The pharmacies employ 235-thousand Floridians. Monday, opponents of the plan gathered outside Alexis’ store to voice their concerns.

“The mail order mandate will harm Florida’s economy. It will increase unemployment across the state,” said Bill Mincy with PCAN.

There are 2.9 million Medicaid patients in Florida, costing taxpayers an average of 7-thousand dollars a piece.

Mail in prescriptions are a small piece of much larger Medicaid reform plan being crafted to safe the state money.

The Agency for Health Care Administration, by order of the state legislature, is writing the plan. Our request for an interview about how the plan would work, was denied. ACHA will submit its plan to the Federal government for approval August 1st.