Prescription drug system is broken, but reader believes we have a chance to reform it | Opinion
Time for reform
Patients in Missouri, and across the country, are paying too much out-of-pocket for their medications because insurance middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers, have monopolized our prescription drug marketplace. (Oct. 13, 7A, “These Missouri Republicans fight high drug prices”)
Just three pharmacy benefit managers control 80 percent of the prescription drug marketplace. This consolidation allows them to employ a business model that influences or controls virtually every aspect of prescription drug cost and access. These largely unregulated middlemen make money in part by prioritizing high-cost drugs because they base patient co-pays on the high list prices of drugs, even when they pay much less because of negotiated discounts with manufacturers.
There is hope this broken system will be reformed thanks to the Delinking Revenue from Unfair Gouging Act being considered in the Senate. The DRUG Act would prevent pharmacy benefit managers from basing patient co-pays on list prices.
Reforming these middlemen would significantly improve our prescription drug marketplace and out-of-pocket costs for patients. This is why it is heartening to see Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley sign on as a co-sponsor of Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall’s bill.
- Siobhan McLaughlin Lesley, Kansas City
Bad choices
So here we have it, America. Leading the polls for the elephant and donkey parties for the 2024 presidential election are Donald and his “trumped” up charges and Sleepy Joe, who just turned 81.
It amazes me that commercial pilots must retire at the age of 65 and air traffic controllers at 56, but our constitution allows 80-year-olds to have their fingers on the atomic bomb codes.
Then there’s Donald Trump, 77, who is on trial for financial fraud in New York City and faces felony counts in falsifying business records to pay hush money to a porn star, on hoarding classified documents and for election interference in Georgia. And let’s not forget that back in May a jury awarded E. Jean Carroll $5 million for Trump’s sexual abuse and defamation.
Oh, and if you want to swing your vote to an independent, there’s the anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been trying to get the guy who assassinated his father paroled.
Is this country going to hell in a handbasket or what?
- Greg Schoen, Lenexa
Full story?
There has much been written in The Star about the incident at Shawnee Mission East High School involving a 15-year-old boy beating a Black student while shouting the N-word, but I have yet to see any background on what led up to the altercation. (Dec. 6, 1A, “Shawnee Mission parents, students urge action against racism) Surely, that has some relevance.
- Rex D. Nowland, Kansas City
Let owners pay
The owners of both the Chiefs and the Royals are billionaires. The players and coaches are paid millions of dollars, and yet taxpayers are expected to pay for stadiums while all the profits go to the owners? (Dec. 3, 1B, “Inside the Chiefs’ negotiations to renovate Arrowhead Stadium”) What a deal!
This is getting ridiculous. No more taxes. No more taxpayer-funded stadiums. No more tax breaks. For what, a few minimum-wage jobs? Who really benefits? What are these teams worth when sold? Do taxpayers get any of that?
Let the owners pay for their own stadiums or move the teams somewhere else. Enough of this taxpayer-funded stupidity.
- Frank Green, Kansas City
