Government

Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway says a recent report puts the commonwealth as the fourth most medicated state in the country.  Conway appeared with three other guests on KET’s Kentucky Tonight.  The discussion centered on what’s been called a pain pill epidemic across the state.

“We are losing more people to prescription pill overdoses than car accidents and you know what, we think that’s under reported because only about half of overdoses make it to the coroner, state medical examiner’s office where we get these statistics."

After a week of negotiations, the House Judiciary Committee has passed an amended version of a bill that would regulate pseudoephedrine.

Kentucky lawmakers continue to chastise three of the state's Medicaid Managed Care organizations for mismanagement.

Representatives of Kentucky Spirit, Wellcare of Kentucky and Coventry Cares appeared before the program review committee today. Legislators wanted to know whether they had solved problems brought up by health care providers in a January committee meeting.

The MCOs all said the problems were mostly solved and that operations were improving every day. But independent pharmacists and mental health care providers disagreed.