Pfizer Inc., the nation’s largest drugmaker, ended its widely used discount card for the elderly on Tuesday, leaving several hundred thousand low-income Medicare beneficiaries at least temporarily without access to reduced prices for popular medicines like the cholesterol treatment Lipitor.The company said that it had been warning its 536,000 cardholders for months that it would discontinue the discount program on Aug. 31 and that it had advised them to sign up for one of various discount cards that became available under a new Medicare program that began in June.But consumer advocates, citing the widespread confusion over the new Medicare program, had asked Pfizer to keep its discount card in place until 2006--the year that prescription drugs will become a standard part of Medicare benefits.Under the former Pfizer card, a 30-day supply of Lipitor cost $15--compared with $68 at one Internet pharmacy, for example, or $43.32 at one Canadian Web site.The Pfizer discount card, called the Living Share Card, was introduced two years ago and aimed at low-income elderly people.
