Upon the Senate’s vote to confirm Dr. Mehmet Oz as director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) extends its congratulations and looks forward to collaborating with him to address pressing healthcare issues. Key priorities for NACDS include collaborating to confront the chronic disease crisis, and the advancement and implementation of pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) reform legislation, which NACDS says is “ready to go” in the U.S. Congress.
NACDS noted its formal recommendations to the Trump Administration, “Four Wins to Make America Healthy Again.”
Anderson said, “NACDS looks forward to working with Dr. Oz and with CMS to help address the chronic disease crisis. The United States still focuses more on ‘sick care’ than on ‘healthcare.’ Pharmacies are vital to the prevention and management of chronic disease. We look forward to collaborating to leverage pharmacy patient care completely for the American people.”
NACDS also emphasized that the increasing urgency for PBM reform cannot be overstated. The costs of inaction are accelerating, with nearly four pharmacies closing daily, exacerbating healthcare access challenges across the nation. Since the end of the last Congress, hundreds of millions of dollars in potential savings for Americans have been unrealized due to drug-price inflation driven by PBMs.
NACDS President and CEO Steven C. Anderson continued, “Pharmacies are the most accessible and among the most trusted healthcare destinations for Americans. However, PBM tactics are jeopardizing pharmacies and threatening to make healthcare more remote and out-of-reach for many communities. The accessibility, trust, and quality of pharmacy patient care is a must-have for any vision to improve healthcare in this country. This legislation is ready to go in the U.S. Congress, and it needs to be enacted and implemented swiftly and fully.”
President Donald Trump has consistently highlighted the importance of confronting the middlemen in healthcare, noting the exorbitant profits that they extract. Dr. Oz, during his Senate confirmation hearing, noted the importance of confronting PBMs’ spread pricing and of dramatically improving transparency, stating “President Trump has been very clear on this. He wants to reduce the costs of medications to our government and to the American people – the co-pay. That’s not happening right now and we can do better.”
