On the recordMarch 1, 2017
I think the gentleman is hitting on something and, Mr. Speaker, I think this is really something we need to discuss. We are not discussing simply a business model that was designed in a vacuum, that was designed to help. Early on I stated this, and I state it every time we have this. PBMs, in their first iteration, as they first came about, were a good mechanism to provide pricing and between the pharmacies and the wholesalers. The problem was when they became vertically integrated, when they started owning distribution chains, when they started owning their actual end-result pharmacies. When they started doing this, it became then that they are negotiating for themselves. And this is where the end-user--at the end of the day, the person who pays is the Federal Government, but also the customer, our constituents. This is what happens here, and we are losing community and independent pharmacists every day. This is just not right. When three companies control 80 percent of the market and they use tactics like gag orders and other things, where they don't want their pharmacists to talk about it, where they send out letters saying that the pharmacist is not on their plan anymore when clearly the pharmacist is, but then refuse to send a retraction letter, this is just--I have said this, and I have had people call me after we have talked about this, Mr. Speaker, where they basically said it is amazing this is happening.…
