| Drop restrictions on local pharmacists to protect local and state economies |
| Tuesday, May 4, 2004 The Hillsdale Daily News By Karri Doty |
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Local pharmacists are vital members of our business community – trusted, involved, dependable and available when we need them. Consumers place great value on the personal services they receive – without charge – from these conveniently located healthcare providers.
Faceless, out-of-state mail-order pharmacies, by contrast, have drawn consumer complaints, federal lawsuits and other government action in state after state. Issues range from questionable pricing, reliability and safety to outright fraud and paying massive kickbacks. Concerns like these motivated Michigan legislators to introduce a five-bill Consumer Prescription Protection Act now being reviewed in Lansing. Comprised of House Bills 4987, 5435, 5436, 5437 and 5438, it would assure that health plans allow an identical-cost choice of whether to fill long-term prescriptions locally or by mail. The current trend toward mail order mandates isn’t good for anyone except the warehouse facilities and their owners – the same Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) that won’t let community stores provide 90-day prescriptions for chronic conditions at identical prices and terms as the mail providers. It’s not that local drugstores cannot effectively compete with mail-order fulfillment houses – they aren’t allowed to. Critics of the Consumer Prescription Protection Act contend that it will raise costs for employers, perhaps to the point of making prescription drug coverage unaffordable by many businesses. Frankly, I don’t buy that. In my view, this legislation significantly increases competition, and I have yet to see a situation where competition raises prices. The trend to force employees to use mail order pharmacies is growing. In a recent survey of more than 600 employers that provide benefits to over 15 million workers, 21 percent said they have a mandatory-mail-order program in place or are adopting one this year. An additional 48 percent are considering a mandatory-mail plan, according to the survey by Hewitt Associates, a human-resources consulting firm. I find those numbers both shocking and unfortunate. Almost 70 percent of employers either use or are considering using a procedure that robs consumers of choice, damages local and regional economies and degrades quality healthcare. Here in Michigan, our will lose $2 billion in prescription spending this year. Two billion dollars that could and should be spent here in Michigan! I find that unacceptable. Local druggists are put at a competitive disadvantage by the pharmacy benefit managers that design and administer prescription benefit programs for employers and insurers. One PBM – Medco Health – now manages pharmacy benefits for the whole auto industry: its mail order pharmacy fills all mail-in prescriptions for UAW members and retirees. Who among us wouldn’t love to have a sweet deal like that! Unless PBMs are prohibited from discriminating against retail pharmacies, consumers could see hundreds of Michigan community pharmacies being forced to close, weakening the state through lost jobs, tax revenues and local purchases of services and goods. Patients strongly prefer shopping at their community pharmacy. Michigan’s 2,000 pharmacies are vital to the state’s economic health. For many people, especially senior citizens and the disabled, they are the essential links to quality healthcare. To continue their important role, our state’s pharmacies don’t need tax breaks or rebates or special exemptions. They simply need to have their hands untied so that they can compete toe-to-toe with the giant out-of-state mail-order facilities. I urge everyone who reads this to take a few minutes to write their state representative and state senator and urge them to support the Consumer Prescription Protection Act. It’s good healthcare and good business. - Karri Doty is president of the Hillsdale County Chamber of Commerce. |
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