Mike Collins: “I thank my friend. We have been talking about this, and I think what is amazing is, the more we have these, and the more…”

“I thank my friend. We have been talking about this, and I think what is amazing is, the more we have these, and the more we talk about community pharmacists and the issues that we find, people are starting to understand the real problem that exists here. Mr. Speaker, more than 250,000 individuals employed either on a full- time or part-time basis by community pharmacies, these people's livelihoods are facing consequential threats due to the often anticompetitive behavior of pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs. Many people may have never heard of a PBM. Well, let's give them a definition tonight. PBMs are middlemen who administer prescription drug plans. In fact, three primary middlemen control 78--almost 80 percent-- of the market and control the pharmacy benefits of over 253 million Americans. {time} 2030 PBMs process prescriptions for groups that pay for drugs and control drug formulation to determine what drugs are covered by specific plans. The three major PBMs--Express Scripts, CVS Caremark Health, and OptumRx--produce no tangible product. Let me repeat that. These three produce no tangible product. Yet they have a major impact on the way you and I access medication, on small business pharmacies, and even other small business PBMs. If you don't believe me, just the other day, I was watching a business show, and there was a PBM--there was a transparent PBM who talked through this whole issue of fees, rebates, and everything else.…”