The Kansas City Star: No middlemen

By Connie Farrow, Patients Come First Missouri Executive Director

The role of pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, is failing people with diabetes who rely on the influential prescription drug middlemen for affordable insulin.

That’s why we applaud Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway for suing 19 PBMs she claims have been conspiring to increase insulin prices. She said in a statement that their actions have driven up costs for uninsured residents over the past 15 years. Patients were charged upward of $400 for the same insulin that sold abroad for less than $5.

This hits hard because nearly 450,000 Missourians are uninsured, and about 81,000 of them have diabetes. They count on PBMs to use the deep discounts and rebates they receive from drug manufacturers to construct formularies designed to improve their health, not inflate list prices. It can have dire consequences, with patients rationing or even skipping doses of their prescribed medication because of high costs.

Read the full LTE in The Kansas City Star here.