Abolish PBMs

Pharmacy Benefit Managers
Originally, created to be a “third party” or “middleman” between insurance companies and pharmacies to lower medication costs for patients, by negotiating prescription drug costs with pharmaceutical wholesalers.
They also create and manage medication formularies, deciding what medications will be covered by the insurance company. (Shouldn’t this be left to the prescriber, the ones qualified and trained to assess what the patient needs?)
Now, they are mainly owned by the insurance company, or father company, they are doing “middleman” business with, along with owning many mail-order and specialty pharmacies.
They are in everyone else’s lane but their own. Dictating what medications will be paid for and how much will be paid. Patients and small pharmacies are the ones that suffer. The money being “saved” by these corrupted companies are not passed along to the patient, rather getting stuffed their pockets daily.
There’s so much more to this than I’ve listed, but I just wanted to get out a quick summary of what is going on. This is a small start, but these mega companies need to be dialed back before they take control of the entire healthcare system. (You know, like universal healthcare)
I do work in retail pharmacy, specifically independent. So, this is the world I live in. You could also say I’m bias, but the facts stand. Dig into yourself, if you find anything I’ve said to be untrue please enlighten me. I do not claim to know it all.
I look forward to all the great things this administration is going to do. And I thank them listening to the voices of the people.

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