Excerpt: In the battle to trim health-care spending over the last several years, so-called tiering of prescription drug benefits has become a standard strategy. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey, adoption by employers of three-tier drug-benefit plans jumped from 27% to 63% between 2000 and 2003. Under the system, a patient is charged a co-payment of, say, $10 for a generic drug, vs. around $20 for a brand-name drug on the insurer's approved list and $30 or more for a drug not[.]  MORE >>