A new television commercial by the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) features a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) visiting a classroom during Career Day.
In a July 8 news announcement, the NCPA said the commercial is part of an “ongoing campaign to push lawmakers to enact pharmacy benefit manager reform, which has bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress.”
In the ad, the PBM was quizzed by kids who want to know what exactly a PBM does. “I decide what medications doctors can prescribe to your parents and grandparents, and how much they pay for it,” the actor portraying the PBM explained.
But the students grew ever more confused as the PBM said he does not make medicine, and that he is not a doctor or pharmacist. “No, no, no,” the PBM said. “We really don’t like dealing with the patients. We’re more of medicine middlemen.”
When one astute kid asked, “Do you make a lot of money?”, the PBM answered, “Oh, yes. Billions every year.”
“But if you don’t make the medicine, you’re not a doctor, then what are you doing to make all this money?” another student countered.
“You know when your mommy goes to the pharmacy and says that the prices on her medicine have gone up?” the PBM replied. “Well, that’s us!”
The news announcement from the NCPA said the commercial “highlights the position PBMs have carved out for themselves as drug middlemen and their illogical and confusing role in health care.”
“PBMs and the massive health insurance companies that they’re affiliated with extract billions in profits from patients and pharmacies, worsening pharmacy deserts for consumers and snuffing out small businesses,” said NCPA CEO B. Douglas Hoey, pharmacist, MBA, in the announcement. “Our campaign is designed to shed light on these practices, mobilize the public to demand change, and push policymakers to finish the fight for PBM payment reforms. It is time for transparency and accountability in the health-care system.”
The ad is running nationally on CNN.
