Washington, D.C. — Following the introduction of the Pharmacists Fight Back Act—a bipartisan bill that aims to reduce drug prices, protect community pharmacies, and ensure patient choice by reining in the exploitative practices of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs)—from Rep. Jake Auchincloss and Rep. Diana Harshbarger, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“This bill will go a long way toward ending the crisis of pharmacy closures and attendant pharmacy deserts,” said pharmacist Benjamin Jolley, Senior Fellow for Healthcare at the American Economic Liberties Project. “It would make government programs for prescription drugs have meaningful, transparent, and predictable prices for patients, pharmacies and taxpayers, as well as strengthen the security of our drug supply chain. It would also end a number of bad practices, such as the “slot machine” game of prescription drug pricing and reimbursement that currently exists and the practice of paying pharmacies “counterfeit drug prices” for brands that are currently so prevalent in Medicare Part D.”

“Unlike other legislative efforts that primarily focus on manufacturers and employer-sponsored insurance, this bill directly addresses the challenges faced by pharmacies themselves,” added Jolley. “It’s the first step toward real change that will improve the day-to-day operations and financial viability of independent pharmacies across the country.”

More than half of all prescriptions in the United States are paid for by the government, making community pharmacy access heavily dependent on government policy. Since the passage of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, the responsibility for pricing these prescriptions has increasingly fallen into the hands of PBMs. These complex middlemen manipulate pricing to benefit themselves and their favored partners, often at the expense of patients, pharmacies, and even government programs. The result is an opaque pricing system, with PBMs maintaining hundreds of separate price lists, obscuring costs from everyone but themselves.

For small pharmacies, processing prescriptions under these conditions is akin to playing a rigged game in a casino—sometimes losing money, occasionally making a small profit, and only rarely hitting a financial “jackpot” that keeps them afloat. This chaotic system is exacerbated by the PBMs’ demands for branded drug pricing, which are often disconnected from the actual cost of acquiring the drugs. Pharmacies of all sizes, from independents to large chains, regularly lose money on expensive products, creating vulnerabilities in the supply chain that can be exploited by counterfeiters and fraudsters.

The Pharmacists Fight Back Act aims to address these deep-rooted issues by striking at the core of PBM power: the unfair and opaque pricing structures. By requiring government programs like Medicare Part D, Medicaid, TRICARE, and the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program to adopt a fair and transparent pricing methodology—based on the average cost of goods plus a standardized dispensing fee—this bill would ensure that pharmacies are compensated fairly across all prescriptions. This move would not only make drug pricing more transparent and predictable but also provide much-needed stability to the supply chain and ensure fairness for consumers, pharmacies, and government programs alike.

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