Pharmacy Benefit Managers: The tyrants of healthcare

Who elected the medical mafia that sets our drug prices?

Last month, President-elect Donald Trump pledged to eliminate Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs).

PBMs act as middlemen between pharmacies, drug manufacturers, and insurance companies. They were introduced in the 1960s to improve access to drugs at reasonable prices. Since then, however, PBMs have become intermediaries who wield enormous power without oversight. They secretly negotiate drug prices with insurance companies and drugmakers, often at excessive prices, and then reimburse pharmacies for the drugs at much lower rates, pocketing the profits. This is a major source of revenue for PBMs, but it causes heavy losses for pharmacies that are reimbursed for less than the cost of the drugs they dispense. Since PBMs also negotiate which medications are covered by insurers, pharmacies are forced to accept the terms set by PBMs or risk losing access to entire insurance networks.

At a December press conference, Trump vowed to remove PBMs from the healthcare equation.

“We’re going to knock out …