August 27, 2004

Church Group Calls For Special Session 

Staff 
Charleston

The West Virginia Council of Churches wants Governor Bob Wise to keep his promise and call a special session to deal with prescription drug prices.

During the past session, lawmakers passed the Pharmaceutical Affordability and Availability Act. The goal was to find the most affordable way to provide prescription drugs to West Virginians.

The Pharmaceutical and Cost Management Council was formed to do just that and the committee will hand over its report to the governor next month. Recently Governor Bob Wise has said he does not plan to call a special session to deal with the issue because the legislature needs more time to study the issue

Dennis Sparks, the executive director of the WV Council of Churches, disagrees with the governor. He says lawmakers have had plenty of time to keep up with the prescription drug issue and now is the time to act, before families and senior citizens are forced to pay even more money out of their own pockets for prescription drugs.

Sparks says he is concerned that Governor Wise may be trying to push this all-important issue off to the next governor. The Council of Churches met recently and urged the governor to call a special session.

The Council of Churches includes more than 2,000 churches with 600,000 members. Sparks says Governor Wise needs to keep his promise and find the best way to lower costs now instead of waiting months for anything to be accomplished.