OPINION:
Earlier this year, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders outlawed anti-competitive practices in the pharmacy industry, and lobbyists are hopping mad about it. There are many reasons drug prices are inflated, but she realized some of the biggest retailers have figured out how to game the system.
“These massive corporations are attacking our state because we will be the first in the country to hold them accountable for their anticompetitive actions, but Arkansas has never been afraid to be a conservative leader for America,” Mrs. Sanders said in a statement after she signed a bill in April prohibiting pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) from owning pharmacies.
Pharmacy benefit managers are the middlemen who negotiate rates between pharmaceutical manufacturers, insurance companies and pharmacies. These organizations were supposed to keep costs low for customers through volume discounts, rebates and generic substitution. It hasn’t worked out that way.
In Arkansas, the three largest middlemen