States that try to save money on their employee health programs as well as welfare health programs by avoiding newer, costlier drugs, may be penny wise and pound foolish, according to Frank R. Lichtenberg, a Columbia University professor.

Here's an excerpt from the executive summary of a report published by the Manhattan Institute:

"By our estimates, if the average vintage of drugs prescribed since 1995 and paid for by Medicaid had not become more recent, the rate of increase at which working-age people were classified as disabled would have been 30 percent higher than it actually was, resulting in 418,000 additional people receiving disability payments in 2004."

In other words, in the attempt to save a buck, lawmakers may be spending more in the long run. Worse, they will have consigned many people to lives with disabilities.