Loebsack Visits Local Pharmacy In Fact-Finding Stop

Congressman Dave Loebsack (D) center, talks with the Nichols, Mahaska Drug owners about PBM's. Loebsack was in town on Friday to hear from pharmacists on the subject of PBM's.

Congressman Dave Loebsack (D) center, talks with the Nichols, Mahaska Drug’s owners, about PBM’s.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – It’s something nearly all of us do after a doctor visit, next stop, the drug store.

For drug stores across Iowa, the partnerships they have with their PBM or pharmacy benefit manager can be a contentious one. Pharmacies may face financial loss on a filled prescription because a PBM may not yet have its newest cost sheets updated. Cost increases overnight to the pharmacy of a drug can reach 6000% or more. This would be the equivalent of waking up in the morning to find your $2.50 gas now costs over $27.00 per gallon.

A bill passed last year, and signed into law in 2015, was passed unanimously by both houses. According to Iowa House Republicans, the law “regulates pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) by authorizing the insurance commissioner to require disclosure of PBM’s pricing methodology for pharmaceuticals to pharmacies.”

“The law also regulates contracts between PBMs and pharmacies.”

That law has been met by a lawsuit from Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, who represents the nations PBM’s that disagreed with the bill. In a release they stated, “The law—HF 2297—forces PBMs to overpay for generic drugs by severely restricting the use of Maximum Allowable Cost (MAC) lists that keep generic drug costs reasonable. PBM customers, like employers and public programs, rely on MAC lists to prevent overpayments to drugstores.”

Congressman Dave Loebsack stopped by Oskaloosa on Friday to talk with the Nicholson’s, who own Mahaska Drug in Oskaloosa, in regards to PBM’s. “I’ve been dealing with this issue since I got elected in ’07, when I got into Congress. I’ve visited a lot of the community pharmacists in my district at that time, and they told me about this problem. They are really getting squeezed, and really quite unfairly,” said Loebsack of local pharmacies.

“I’ve got a bill that would provide transparency, in at least what those PBM’s are doing and how they’re acting towards these local pharmacies,” Said Loebsack. “It’s the bigger ones too that are getting squeezed. There’s really no reason. We have to be able to find out exactly what’s happening first and foremost.”

“It’s something, especially for community pharmacists. We see a lot of those folks going out of business because they cannot make the books. They can’t make it happen,” says Loebsack. “They can’t get a profit from it.”

As Loebsack pointed out, Mahaska Drug has many things going for it that help it survive financially beyond the pharmacy business.

In Iowa, the House and Senate wrote new legislation this year, with it once again passing unanimously through both houses. Area legislators, Guy Vander Linden and Ken Rozenboom were a part of this legislation once again as well.

On April 2nd of this year, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad signed House File 395 into law. “an Act relating to the regulation of pharmacy benefit managers and including effective date provisions.”

Posted by on Apr 19 2015. Filed under Local News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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