Prescription drug middlemen are jacking up prices

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'One of the leading culprits in pushing [prescription drug] costs even higher are pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) — companies whose behavior is so egregious that Democrats and Republicans are united in trying to reform them,' B Douglas Hoey writes.

is competition. See if you can guess why: CVS Caremark is owned by CVS Health, the biggest pharmacy chain in the world . The other two giant PBMs, OptumRx and Express Scripts , either own or affiliate with mail-order pharmacies too. “Sorry, that medicine you need isn’t available at the corner pharmacy, but you can get it from our mail-order service!” Or, “You can get your medicine at the corner pharmacy, but you’ll pay a lot more for it.

In all 50 states, from deep red to deep blue, legislators have introduced bills or passed laws that crack down on anti-competitive PBM practices such as spread pricing, retroactive fees, patient steering, mandatory mail order, and sweetheart deals for PBM-owned pharmacies. The PBMs are out of control, and everyone knows it.

So, let me tell you about the NCPA. We’re the largest association of independently owned and operated pharmacies. We represent owners of mom-and-pop stores, roughly 20,000 of them across the country. Our typical member owns two stores and has about a dozen employees. They fill about 200 prescriptions a day for patients who are mostly elderly or poor. And they lose money on most of them because of the PBMs.

 

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True. Only surpassed by the government itself.

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