Medicare Part D is deliberately killing off independent pharmacies

[starroute]

Our local pharmacy -- the last independently owned one in town -- is closing tomorrow. The reason is that starting next year, the Medicare Part D providers have set up "preferred" deals where prescriptions are cheaper at certain selected pharmacies, and almost all of them refuse to deal with the independents.

The provider my husband and I are signed up with isn't even using the chains -- you have to go to either the supermarket or Target to get the lower prices. My husband and I had discussed this and decided we were willing to pay the extra couple of hundred dollars a year to keep our independent pharmacy in business, but now we're not even getting that choice.

I haven't seen coverage of this anywhere -- and perhaps it hasn't sunk in enough to gain the attention of the media. But if it's happening here, it must be happening everywhere. And it totally sucks.

[Cleita]

1. Yep, this is what Republican style social benefits get you.

The small mom and pop stores can't compete with Wal-Mart et al. because it's all thrown out on the so-called free market. I would like our legislators to pass laws that state that small retail stores across the board not just pharma get the same wholesale prices as the big box stores. The playing field needs to be leveled to be truly competitive in the market place.

[madrchsod]

2. my town lost there`s 10 years ago because of medicaid

the pharmacy was owed over 200,000 dollars from the state. the owner could`t do anything about this so he closed his door.now a large regional chain takes care of medicaid.

[jsr]

3. Corporatization is the new face of American medicine

with guaranteed revenue and profits, courtesy of the taxpayer.

[dmosh42]

4. I can get my prescriptions from local pharms, but they only deal in 30 day supplies....

and I'm told that's by the law. I would rather get a 90 day supply which I do through my online pharm. But when I go to the local pharms there are always plenty of people waiting for their prescriptions, and plenty of people with jobs filling them out. So it doesn't seem to bother my local drug providers.

[sharp_stick]

5. My company plan

has been going this route for years. Any maintenance medication, that is anything I or my family receive more than two prescriptions for in a 12 month period, must be filled through CVS - Caremark or I have to pay 50% of the full cost.

That's no big deal on a lot of things that you can actually fill at Target, Walmart or even the local Price Chopper without involving insurance but for anything of real cost it's pretty much got to be filled by CVS-Caremark.