Pharmacists rally in Springfield

Posted on March 14, 2019
Pharmacists gathered in Springfield Wednesday including Sen. Andy Manar (D-Bunker Hill) at mic and House Majority Leader Greg Harris (D-Chicago) (foreground, back to camera). (Dave Dahl/WJBC)

 

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – White coats filled the Capitol Rotunda Wednesday afternoon. It was a rally of pharmacists promoting legislation to rein in pharmacy benefit managers.

“Current state law does not require PBM middlemen to be licensed. They are not regulated or held to account by any government entity,” said Lauren Young, a second-generation pharmacist in the Decatur area. “We’re calling on the state to license and regulate these PBM middlemen; otherwise, Illinois’ patients, taxpayers, and pharmacists will continue to pay high drug prices, and fraud, waste, and abuse will run rampant.”

The independent pharmacists say they’re a dying breed, and the emergence and power of the PBM’s are the executioner.

Earlier in the day, diabetic Clair Irwin of Champaign testified to a committee that her analog insulin has risen in price over the past two decades at such a rate that, if it were gasoline, it would now cost $150 a gallon. Irwin is the Illinois chapter leader of insulin4all (cq).

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]

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