Thread by @stacyfmitchell

Big drug players are driving independent pharmacies out of business. Many places are becoming “pharmacy deserts.”

I co-wrote this piece w/ @cthaxtonilsr about what’s happening — told through the story of an immigrant pharmacist in rural Maine. 1/

theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-r…

@cthaxtonilsr Before Ben Okafor opened Family Pharmacy in Eastport – which is way up near the Canadian border -- there hadn’t been a pharmacy in the region for more than a decade.

Picking up a prescription meant a 40-minute drive, each way. 2/

@cthaxtonilsr What had happened to the pharmacies in Eastport? In the mid-2000s, there had been 2 local pharmacies. Then Rite Aid bought and closed both – banking on the fact that residents would drive to a Rite Aid in Bangor (2 hr) or Calais (40 min). 3/

@cthaxtonilsr Large stretches of rural American — and urban black and Lantinx neighborhoods too — have similarly become "pharmacy deserts,” as the chains & other big industry players deliberately capsize the indie pharmacies that typically serve these communities. 4/

@cthaxtonilsr Independent pharmacies aren’t just being bought and closed by the chains.

Some are going under because their biggest competitors, including CVS, own the pharmacy benefit management companies (PBMs) that control their reimbursement rates. Talk about a conflict of interest. 5/

@cthaxtonilsr CVS, which owns a big PBM and also owns Aetna now, likes to use its market power to self-deal.

Through these other divisions, it’s been cutting insurance reimbursements paid to indie pharmacies — and then offering to buy their snuggling businesses. 6/

@cthaxtonilsr The tragedy of this is multifaceted. Pharmacy deserts are one facet.

Another is that independent pharmacies are much cheaper than the chains & the big box stores. And they provide much superior care.
7/

@cthaxtonilsr Ben Okafor, the Maine pharmacist, knows this first-hand. He moved to Maine from Nigeria to work at a Rite Aid in Bangor. He was under constant pressure to dispense with patients quickly. “For the chains, it’s all down the bottom line.” That’s one reason he set out on his own. 8/

@cthaxtonilsr So far, Okafor’s Family Pharmacy is beating the odds. He even opened a second location, in another underserved town.

But the PBMs, and competing pharmacies that own them, are a constant threat. They are “really squeezing us,” he says. 9/

@cthaxtonilsr For years, the #antitrust agencies, especially the @FTC, have turned a blind eye. Rural places and communities of color are now paying the biggest price for a lack of pharmacies & health care. 10/

@cthaxtonilsr @FTC With the FTC negligent, some states have been trying to limit the abuses of PBMs & level the playing field for indie pharmacies.

But we really need to fix this at the root, at the federal level, by breaking the power of PBMs & Big Rx chains. 11/11

Read: theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-r…