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Weatherford pharmacist joins lawmakers, peers from six states supporting bill at U.S. Capitol

Reporter: Glenn Evans gevans@weatherforddemocrat.com


A Weatherford pharmacist joined members of Congress

and her peers from six states in Washington on Friday to raise support for a bill

to rein in the pricing power of Pharmacy Benefit Managers.


“Our country is facing an epidemic of pharmacy closures,” Brandi Chane, owner

of Davis City Pharmacy on the courthouse square, said at a press conference

below the Capitol dome.


She and the others were there to raise support for House Resolution 9096, also

known as the Pharmacists Fight Back Act.


Introduced by U.S. Reps. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., and Diana Harshbarger, R-

Tenn., the bipartisan measure addresses a range of problems Chane and her

peers lay at the feet of Pharmacy Benefit Managers.


PBMs can be described as a middle-man working in tandem with insurers to

establish what drugs are available — and what the insurance companies pay

drug makers.


They were set up to negotiate prescription drug costs with drug makers. But the

rebates and discounts they achieve don’t reach drug store counters or patients

picking up prescriptions.


And since the PBMs control insurance company reimbursements, pharmacists

often face the choice of signing onto money-losing contracts with insurers or

the untenable path of being unable to provide drugs to patients.


Chane, on Friday, gave her personal testimony of her own mother, a military

spouse on Tri-Care insurance, who works at Davis Pharmacy but can’t get her

prescriptions there because the contract her daughter faces is not sustainable.


“Millions of patients just like my mom will be impacted by the continued

closure of the independent pharmacies without the passage of HR 9096,” she

said. “Have our military service members and their families not given enough

to their country?”... Continue Reading

1 comment

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Van Coble
10월 02일

Way to go Brandi! We are proud of you!

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