Letter to the editor - Support closing pharmacy benefit manager loophole

Editor,

Last week, Sen. Jon Tester announced he was able to help patients save costs by working with the Biden administration to close a loophole allowing Pharmacy Benefit Managers to charge excessive fees.

Sen. Tester noted, “Pharmacy Benefit Managers have been preying on our pharmacies and Medicare patients for years,” and he is absolutely right. These middlemen are often the reason so many have such high out-of-pocket costs at the pharmacy counter when picking up prescriptions.

In today’s economy, Sen. Tester is working to ensure patients are able to access the care they need and eliminate unnecessary costs.

Other members of Congress need to follow Sen. Tester’s approach and find additional bipartisan health care solutions. There are even more efforts that can be done around the PBM industry, like rebate reforms that can bring down patient costs. The deals PBMs often secure with drug manufactures are supposed to go back to patients, but these middlemen again pocket those savings and shortchange patients.

I appreciate Sen. Tester’s efforts to help patients not only in Montana, but across the United States. He and other lawmakers in D.C. need to continue to reform the pharmacy benefit.

Thank you,

Allan Smith

Havre