Ryan visit promotes pharmacy reform legislation

Ryan visit promotes pharmacy reform legislation

Officials and pharmacists gathered at Pine Plains Pharmacy on Monday, Feb. 17, to underscore the need for pharmacy benefit manager reform, an effort toward fairness in drug prices for local family-owned pharmacies. Left to right are Chris Drago, Dutchess County legislator, D-Stanfordville; U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., at podium; Pine Plains pharmacist Nasir Mahmood; area pharmacist Eric Lambert; Pine Plains pharmacist Rehan Mahmood; and Mark Freitas, Washingtonville pharmacist.

Photo submitted

PINE PLAINS — Highlighting concerns about the immediate and long-term survival of local family-owned pharmacies and an effort to pass legislation which would help control prices those pharmacies pay for drugs, brought U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan, D-Kingston, to the Pine Plains pharmacy on Monday, Feb. 17.

Elected officials, local and area pharmacists and residents attended the event, numbering about 20, said Pine Plains pharmacist Nasir Mahmood during a conversation on Wednesday, Feb. 26. He said he had been pleased at the number of elected representatives who were present.

“We’re trying our best,” Mahmood said. “It’s a matter of getting the legislation into the government funding package and getting it passed,” he added.

The intent of the Feb. 17 event was to underscore the need for reform to the policies which allow pharmacy benefit managers to dictate prices that local pharmacies pay for drugs prescribed for their customers, skimming off the profit margins and leaving local pharmacies to deal with minimal profit or frequently, loss.

Pharamcy benefit managers are the middlemen standing between the pharmaceutical manufacturers and insurance companies, actively negotiating drug prices. Ryan’s office indicated that three major benefit managers control 80% of the current prescription drug market and realize $450 billion in revenue.

Pharmacy benefit managers also systematically reimburse pharmacies less than their cost, which is driving local pharmacies out of business.

Rep. Ryan is attempting to reinstate bipartisan legislation within the Congressional Relief package that will be voted on in mid-March. He is co-sponsor of the Drug Price Transparency in Medicaid Act that would prohibit pharmacy benefit managers from charging Medicaid more than they paid pharmacies for a drug. Another piece of legislation, Pharmacists Fight Back Act, would require adequate reimbursement to pharmacists, prohibiting the benefit managers from steering patients to their own large-chain pharmacies. Major segments of that legislation were included in the December 2024 government funding package, but were removed at the last minute, Ryan’s office said.

Congressman Ryan indicated that March 14 is the deadline for the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the Congressional Relief funding package. He has formally requested U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson to reinstate the pharmacy benefit reform legislation into that funding bill.

“I am thankful to Congressman Ryan to take this initiative as he has been a friend of independent pharmacies and small businesses,” said Mahmood, who also serves on the board of the Pharmacists Society of the State of New York.

In the 1960s, pharmacy benefit managers began to process drug claims for insurance companies, but by the 1970s they were serving as middlemen between manufacturers, insurance companies and pharmacies, adjudicating prices. Today, they not only adjudicate claims, but now they develop and manage pharmacy networks, determine the list of drugs to be covered by insurance, set copay amounts and serve to channel the patient to a particular choice of pharmacy.

“I’m demanding Speaker Johnson have the courage to stand with the American people and against the Big Pharma companies ripping us all off,” Rep. Ryan said.

Latest News

Webutuck graduates embrace their bright futures

The 71st annual Commencement at Webutuck High School on Saturday, June 21, was a time of celebration for the class of 2025. Classmates Luis Cabrera, left, of Wassaic and Alex Hernandez of Millerton, paused for a photo in the moments following the ceremony marking their milestone achievement.

Photo by Leila Hawken

AMENIA — A variety of paths will lead the 45 members of the graduating class of 2025 in vastly different directions. To mark the milestone, they assembled with family and friends for their Commencement ceremony at Webutuck High School on Saturday, June 21.

Pride in school and individual achievement was a clear theme as well as the joys of the moment. The weather was sunny and mild for the event held under a huge tent filled to capacity. The view of the far-off hills was silently symbolic.

Keep ReadingShow less
Juneteenth and Mumbet’s legacy

Sheffield resident, singer Wanda Houston will play Mumbet in "1781" on June 19 at 7 p.m. at The Center on Main, Falls Village.

Jeffery Serratt

In August of 1781, after spending thirty years as an enslaved woman in the household of Colonel John Ashley in Sheffield, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Freeman, also known as Mumbet, was the first enslaved person to sue for her freedom in court. At the time of her trial there were 5,000 enslaved people in the state. MumBet’s legal victory set a precedent for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1790, the first in the nation. She took the name Elizabeth Freeman.

Local playwrights Lonnie Carter and Linda Rossi will tell her story in a staged reading of “1781” to celebrate Juneteenth, ay 7 p.m. at The Center on Main in Falls Village, Connecticut.Singer Wanda Houston will play MumBet, joined by actors Chantell McCulloch, Tarik Shah, Kim Canning, Sherie Berk, Howard Platt, Gloria Parker and Ruby Cameron Miller. Musical composer Donald Sosin added, “MumBet is an American hero whose story deserves to be known much more widely.”

Keep ReadingShow less
A sweet collaboration with students in Torrington

The new mural painted by students at Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut.

Photo by Kristy Barto, owner of The Nutmeg Fudge Company

Thanks to a unique collaboration between The Nutmeg Fudge Company, local artist Gerald Incandela, and Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut a mural — designed and painted entirely by students — now graces the interior of the fudge company.

The Nutmeg Fudge Company owner Kristy Barto was looking to brighten her party space with a mural that celebrated both old and new Torrington. She worked with school board member Susan Cook and Incandela to reach out to the Academy’s art teacher, Rachael Martinelli.

Keep ReadingShow less
In the company of artists

Curator Henry Klimowicz, left, with artists Brigitta Varadi and Amy Podmore at The Re Institute

Aida Laleian

For anyone who wants a deeper glimpse into how art comes about, an on-site artist talk is a rich experience worth the trip.On Saturday, June 14, Henry Klimowicz’s cavernous Re Institute — a vast, converted 1960’s barn north of Millerton — hosted Amy Podmore and Brigitta Varadi, who elucidated their process to a small but engaged crowd amid the installation of sculptures and two remarkable videos.

Though they were all there at different times, a common thread among Klimowicz, Podmore and Varadi is their experience of New Hampshire’s famed MacDowell Colony. The silence, the safety of being able to walk in the woods at night, and the camaraderie of other working artists are precious goads to hardworking creativity. For his part, for fifteen years, Klimowicz has promoted community among thousands of participating artists, in the hope that the pairs or groups he shows together will always be linked. “To be an artist,” he stressed, “is to be among other artists.”

Keep ReadingShow less