Jul 20, 2023
On behalf of our nation’s independent pharmacies and their patients, we urge the FTC to vote in favor of issuing a statement cautioning pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) against relying on previous FTC advocacy materials opposing PBM transparency as part of their public relations / image management campaign.
PUTT Statement to the FTC on PBM Advocacy
Open Meeting July 20, 2023
Chairwoman Khan and Federal Trade Commissioners,
On behalf of our nation’s independent pharmacies and their patients, we urge the FTC to vote in favor of issuing a statement cautioning pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) against relying on previous FTC advocacy materials opposing PBM transparency as part of their public relations / image management campaign.
Thanks in large part to the FTC’s inquiry into how vertically-integrated PBM middlemen affect patient access and affordability of medicine, many troubling PBM practices have come under intense public scrutiny. More than 30 bills have been introduced in Congress with an eye toward reining in PBM overreach.
To save face, the vertically-integrated PBMs and their trade lobby, the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA), have begun crowding digital and traditional media channels with false, outdated and misleading information, often relying on the previous FTC materials at the heart of today’s vote.
PBMs are knowingly dealing in bad faith with policy makers, regulatory agencies, and the American public. By voting to issue a cautionary statement, the FTC is acting in the interest of consumers, employers, taxpayers and providers who cannot act in their own interest because the information they need to do so has been willfully withheld from them.
Patients are fed up with having to pay more at the pharmacy counter without any additional benefit to their health or their bank account. The public is weary of watching pharmacy deserts emerge in giant population centers like Chicago, Illinois, and small rural communities like Black Canyon, Arizona.
As long as PBMs can fall back on outdated studies to oppose reform, they will continue to reap record-breaking profits such as those recently announced by UnitedHealth Group’s PBM, Optum, for the second quarter of 2023. Meanwhile our most vulnerable patients are being priced out of lifesaving medicine or left without access to their local pharmacist.
We thank you for your important work on this issue and again ask you to vote in favor of withdrawing outdated FTC materials for PBM advocacy.
Monique Whitney
Executive Director
Pharmacists United for Truth and Transparency