In a move with the potential to affect health care costs, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review a case that will determine the extent to which the states can regulate pharmacy benefit managers, the controversial middlemen in the pharmaceutical supply chain.
At issue is an Arkansas law that governs the reimbursements rates that pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, must pay to pharmacies. Specifically, the law requires PBMs to reimburse pharmacies at or above their wholesale costs paid for generic drugs. It also prevents them from paying their own drug stores more than what is paid to other pharmacies. CVS Health, for instance, owns a PBM and pharmacies.
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How a federal court and a Federal appeals court can not see what these PBM’s are doing to the people of this
country is beyond my imagination. Preempting ARISA or not is not the question here. It is the safe harbor that
the PBM’s are hiding behind to do as they please and freece this country out of billions of dollars and put independent pharmacies out of business. Their non-transparency allows them to pay an independent one price
and pay the pharmacies that they own (how was that allowed to happen?) a much higher price. Proven fact in
at least 25 states. Hopefully SCOTUS will see the injustice in what the lower courts have ruled.
I truly pray……. can’t do this much longer……..