Letter to the editor: Save our local pharmacies

As a patient who deeply values the personal touch my local pharmacy provides, I’m concerned by the growing influence pharmacy middlemen have on my health care decisions.

Called pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), these corporate entities were initially designed to provide electronic claims processing and negotiate drug costs. Only now, three PBMs dominate 80% of the health care market, playing by their own rules. They determine what pharmacies patients can use, often steering them away from local, independent shops to mail-order and large chain pharmacies owned or affiliated with the PBMs themselves.

It corresponds with an alarming rate of local, independent pharmacies closing their doors. These community-based pharmacies provide personalized, thoughtful care that is unmatched by larger chains. The pharmacists know their patients by name, understand our health histories and are integral to our overall well-being.

This downward trend is particularly evident in Pennsylvania, where we continue to face record pharmacy closures. As these local businesses fall one by one to these corporate players, patients lose a critical health care advocate.

Fortunately, there’s a glimmer of hope in Congress as lawmakers attempt to rein in these monopolistic practices. They just need to be pushed over the finish line. I urge Pennsylvania’s elected leaders in Washington to rally behind these efforts that will help protect patients like me.

Heather Vargo

Kittanning