National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) President and CEO Steven C. Anderson issued the following statement today given reports about potential efforts to advance PBM reform and other healthcare issues through the "hotline" process in the U.S. Senate:

"By whatever means, the consensus PBM reforms are long overdue and need to be enacted now. The negative impacts of inaction are mounting for Americans and for their pharmacies. Every day of inaction means continued drug-price inflation for people, more pharmacies forced out of business, and reduced access to necessary medications and pharmacy services – all while the big PBM middlemen profit massively.  

"Pharmacies now are closing at a rate of 3.7 per day – and accelerating. More than 5,800 have closed since 2018, and 1,364 closed last year alone. Just since the end of the last Congress, at least $300 million in patient savings has been unrealized. Every day without the enactment of the PBM reforms that are ready to go in the Congress is unacceptably and irreversibly devastating for Americans, taxpayers, their pharmacies, and their communities. 

"Meanwhile, it is imperative that the Congress and the Administration not get sold a bill of goods from the big PBMs, whose scare tactics are cynical and whose promises are empty. 

"PBM reform is ready to go, and that is the case thanks to extraordinary bipartisan work and agreement. NACDS praises this most recent effort to enact these reforms. NACDS urges that these reforms not become a political football in any way, and rather that they become the long-overdue and urgently-needed law of the land."