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Don’t Let CVS Caremark Control Where You Get Medicine
Patients should choose their pharmacy. CVS may be trying to choose for them, and it could cost us all.
CVS Health owns CVS Caremark, one of the biggest pharmacy benefit managers in the country. Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, are corporate middlemen that sit between patients, insurers, drug companies, and pharmacies. They help decide which drugs are covered, how much pharmacies get paid, and where patients are pushed to fill prescriptions.
Florida’s attorney general announced an investigation last week into whether CVS Health and CVS Caremark used their power to steer patients toward CVS-owned pharmacies instead of the pharmacies they prefer, while squeezing independent pharmacies with unfair reimbursements, audits, clawbacks, and restrictive contracts.
PBMs were supposed to lower drug costs by negotiating better prices. Instead, they collect rebate payments that critics say act like kickbacks — giving corporate middlemen more power while patients and local pharmacies get squeezed.
When independent pharmacies are forced out, patients pay the price. Seniors may have to travel farther for medicine. Rural communities can become pharmacy deserts. Families can lose trusted pharmacists who know their health history and help them navigate complicated care.
No corporation should get to rig the prescription drug system in its own favor. Patients should be able to get medicine from the pharmacy they trust — not the pharmacy a corporate middleman wants to push them toward.
Florida’s investigation should be the start. Attorneys general across the country should launch or join investigations, expose unfair PBM practices, and stop corporate healthcare giants from limiting patient choice. And Florida's attorney general must not cave to outside pressure before CVS Health and CVS Caremark are held accountable.
Thanks for all that you do,
Matt from the Swarm