DeSantis visits Cape Coral to unroll plan to reduce drug prices
A family should not have to decide on whether to buy life-saving medicine or to put food on the table. Unfortunately, that has become the reality for many people in this country, and has been for years.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, along with several members of the State Legislature, came to Cape Coral High School on Friday to announce what he believes will help solve the problem.
Ron DeSantis announced that he would sign an executive order to ensure the state has reforms in place to hold pharmacy benefit managers accountable and to drive transparency in prescription drugs.
DeSantis has petitioned Health & Human Services to purchase drugs from Canada, where he says they are a fraction of what they cost in the U.S., in hopes of saving Florida families hundreds of millions of dollars in prescription costs.
The process started near the end of President Donald Trump’s term where some in his administration didn’t want to do it, though Trump said he should be able to try.
When Joe Biden became president, he signed an executive order saying he wanted to give people access to Canadian drugs, but things have stalled, said DeSantis, who inferred that would give Florida a win (which Democrats don’t want) or that Big Pharma has a hand in it.
“We have to stop doing policy on what Big Pharma wants and do it on the basis of what the people want,” DeSantis said to applause before a supportive crowd. “We have a massive warehouse in Polk County ready to go. These are the same drugs as they have in Canada.”
DeSantis said the state did a deep dive into pharmacy benefit managers and found the state had never done an investigation on the role they play in increasing costs.
“This is an opaque process and you can see how money can be skimmed and it’s really developed into a cottage industry,” DeSantis said. “PBMs are effectively middle men in the process. We want to be able to reduce arbitrage where people are making money, but it’s not serving any broad purpose.”
Simone Marstiller, who led the investigation, spoke about the state of the health system as it relates to pharmacies, as did local pharmacist Ben Levine of Center Pharmacy, who said that because of the PBMs, small independent pharmacies are finding it more difficult to compete with the larger pharmacies.
“Every year, it gets more difficult to serve our communities. Independent pharmacies are closing at an alarming rate. The largest PBM corporations use their clout to create monopolies and limit patient access to small pharmacies like mine,” Levine said. “This allows PBMs to hide markups on the cost of medications paid for by consumers.”
DeSantis also spoke about the record surplus the state had during the past fiscal year and how inflation, particularly gas prices, have impacted people, which DeSantis called “self-inflicted.”
DeSantis also criticized the FDA for pushing through a COVID vaccine for children under the age of 5 so quickly (the governor said he will not use the vaccines) and dinged California Gov. Gavin Newsom for his criticism of DeSantis and the state for “not being free.”
While the executive order is a good start, many admit more has to be done. Costs for out-of-network doctors on a health insurance plan can wipe out the savings of many families, for example.
“The cost of health care across the board for prescriptions and hospital care is escalating. We have to get the tiger by the tail and find a way to reduce costs,” Marstiller said. “One of the most expensive places is the emergency room and so many of our citizens are going there because they don’t have a primary care physician or insurance.”
State Rep. Mike Giallombardo, District 77, which includes Cape Coral, said reducing drug costs has been on the radar for a long time because costs are going out of control.
“It costs $3,000 for one pill. That’s insane. I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of legislation we can do in Tallahassee,” Giallombardo said. “There’s always something we can do further. This is a start, then we’ll work on a strategy to bring it down.”
To reach CHUCK BALLARO, please email news@breezenewspapers.com