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ARLINGTON, Va. — The National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) today announced “Four Wins to Make America Healthy Again” – immediate actions the Trump Administration can take to improve the affordability and accessibility of quality care for all Americans.
Specifically, in recommendations to President Donald Trump and to Secretary of Health and Human Services Nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., NACDS recommends:
- Stop the rip-off: enact PBM middleman reform to lower Americans’ costs and ensure pharmacy choice. It is time to stop the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) middlemen from inflating Americans’ drug prices, from barring access to Americans’ pharmacy of choice, and from forcing pharmacies out of business. This win is ready to go in Congress and it is long overdue.
- Partner with pharmacies to address the chronic disease crisis. The goal to “Make America Healthy Again” is a tall order. Chronic disease is up. Health costs are out of control. Healthcare is more out-of-reach – certainly in rural America. The system has capacity issues. The United States still focuses more on “sick care” than “healthcare.” Pharmacies are vital to the prevention and management of chronic disease. It is time to rely on pharmacies as a healthcare destination – starting with baseline screening for blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol and continuing with a plan to reduce and manage risk. It is time to rely on pharmacies for Food is Medicine programs and for nutrition education like the NACDS Nourish My Health campaign.
- Stop the system from cheating seniors out of access to pharmacy care services. Even when states give Americans more access to pharmacy-based healthcare, Medicare says no. The bureaucracy ignores pharmacists as providers. A broad array of other providers can bill Medicare for services that seniors need – but not pharmacists, the trusted and most accessible health professionals. It is time for a law to fix this, which one-third of the Congress sponsored in the 118th Congress.
- Remove unnecessary regulatory burdens standing between consumers and pharmacy care. The Trump Administration has made clear it wants to hear how government gets in the way. NACDS has stories. In one example, Congress said pharmacies should not be harmed by Medicare price-negotiation, but the government is relying on pharmacies to float the finances for the program. In another example, the government has mandated country-of-origin labeling for prescription bottles, but this information is useless to Americans. If the goal is medication independence, then real solutions are needed. In a third example among many more, the government also needs to get to the bottom of wild fluctuations in pharmacy reimbursement resulting from dramatic changes in a key drug-price benchmark, National Average Drug Acquisition Cost (NADAC). Progress has been made, but this problem needs to be fixed for good.
NACDS president and CEO Steven Anderson said of the recommendations, “Americans rank pharmacies and pharmacists as the most accessible healthcare destinations, and among the most trusted. President Trump was elected on his promise to listen to and serve all Americans – including those for whom healthcare has become more remote and out-of-reach – and pharmacies’ proximity to the American people position them uniquely to help ‘Make America Healthy Again.’ This is an important moment to fix lingering and devastating problems and to leverage tremendous opportunities for Americans and for the pharmacies and pharmacists who serve them.”
NACDS’ complete recommendations to the Trump Administration are available at NACDS.org.
