Mike Collins: “As we get started now, we have a lot of speakers. This is something that has been on my heart for a while, and I know…”

“As we get started now, we have a lot of speakers. This is something that has been on my heart for a while, and I know that it is something we have been getting more and more comments and questions about, especially when you are dealing with the pharmaceutical prices and the Pharma industry. When they begin to look into it, they began to see that there was actually a bigger issue. It was not just big pharmacy and the problems that we do see in drug pricing. It was the end delivery that is going to the pharmacies and how the independent community pharmacists are being beaten down in a way that is really unseemly in our society. They are taking that healthcare line tonight. I have a lot of speakers, and I have a lot of stuff that I am going to be talking about. Just as an important reminder: A community pharmacist is an important niche in our healthcare system, serving as the primary healthcare provider for over 62 million people. Especially in our rural and suburban areas, this is a vital lifeline. Roughly 40 percent of the prescriptions nationwide and a higher percentage in rural Georgia-- especially in northeast Georgia--are filled by our friends in the independent community pharmacy system. Look, the problems that we have and we are going to be discussing even further tonight, we are going to delve into some issues that we want to see taken care of.…”