Letters: PBMs are no friend to veterans or rural residents

As a cancer patient covered by my husband's TRICARE health insurance, I read Rob Maness' July 11 guest column opposing pharmacy benefit manager reform with disappointment. His argument misses the reality for families like mine.

He claims that Louisiana's proposed ban on PBMs from owning pharmacies would create barriers for veterans to access prescriptions. But PBMs already create barriers by dictating ultra-low reimbursement rates to local independent pharmacies, preventing them from participating in TRICARE. That means patients like me and my husband, a retired veteran, are forced to use PBM mail-order services whether we want to or not. Mail order might sound convenient, but it often leads to delays, lost medications and zero personal care. I've experienced this danger firsthand.

Maness tries to scare us by saying reform will close pharmacies and displace veterans. What's more likely is that locally operated pharmacies and non-PBM chains will expand when unfair competition from powerful, vertically integrated PBMs is removed. When PBMs own pharmacies, they set reimbursement rates to favor themselves while underpaying competitors, driving them out of business. Banning PBMs from owning pharmacies would end this conflict of interest, keeping locally operated pharmacies open and thriving.

Here in Louisiana, independents have always served rural and underserved communities where big chains refuse to go. They provide personalized care, deliver medications and work hard to ensure no one goes without. The idea that only PBM chains can serve patients is false and insulting to the small-business pharmacists working daily to keep Louisianans healthy.

PBMs use their ownership of pharmacies to manipulate the system. They underpay locally operated pharmacies, force veterans into their mail-order programs and overcharge TRICARE while pocketing the difference. That isn't about access and quality care. It's about greed.

Banning PBMs from owning pharmacies would bring affordability, access and better care back to Louisiana.

DONNA WALKER

Ball