“Without a struggle, there can be no progress.”
Those words, spoken by Frederick Douglass, underscored the need for using resistance to advance society.
After 170 years, these words apply to our society’s greatest travesties against minorities, and there are few travesties more applicable to this quote than America’s health care divide.
While Virginia’s minority and non-minority low-income groups have made great progress under Gov. Glenn Youngkin in health care, housing and jobs, Big Pharma’s reaped an astounding $1.7 trillion in sales last year and is placing profits over people.
The pharmaceutical industry is trying to eliminate pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which are vital to lowering prescription drug prices. Without them, pharmaceutical companies would have extra leverage to charge patients even more money.
Sadly, Black, Hispanic and other underserved communities — already on the wrong side of America’s health care divide — will be hurt most if large drug companies succeed at dismantling PBMs in Virginia and other states.
Nearly 60% of America’s Black adults are stricken with cardiovascular disease. Without PBMs, these drug price negotiators, Black adults would be charged 40-50% more for those prescription drugs keeping cardiovascular patients alive.
Hispanic and Latino adults are 70% more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes than non-Hispanic whites. PBMs help keep anti-diabetic medications like insulin and metformin affordable through formulary management and rebate negotiations, extending lives and reducing complications. Without PBMs, these drug prices will rise, and fewer will use them, shortening lives and ruining health so that pharmaceutical companies can add billions to their bottom lines.
We’re getting dangerously closer to these realities in Virginia.
Big Pharma spent $31 million in 2024 to influence legislation that could weaken and eventually eliminate PBMs — all while employing a massive public ad campaign blaming PBMs for artificially high drug costs in America.
The campaign’s results: The media and legislatures are plagued with misleading narratives that shift negative attention away from Big Pharma’s profit-driven pricing practices and their strong resistance to Most Favored Nation (MFN) drug pricing that’s vigorously supported by President Donald Trump and his allies. Almost immediately, MFN pricing can reduce drug prices by 30-80%, saving America’s patients up to $88 billion over the next seven years.
This year in Virginia alone, three PBM-weakening bills attempted to impose new state-level standards and penalties that could disrupt their payment model and take away their leverage against pharma companies in drug cost negotiations.
One of these pharma-backed bills became law on July 1. Under the illusion of transparency, it will force the sharing of information that gives pharmaceutical companies an upper hand during PBM price negotiations. It could also give Big Pharma and its politicians more leverage to weaken PBM companies and widen the door for more anti-PBM legislation in our commonwealth.
Everyone, especially those struggling with low incomes, should have access to lifesaving drugs. For decades, PBMs have stood up to Big Pharma companies and brought drug costs down to $5 for generics and $25 for brand-name drugs that could cost hundreds or thousands of dollars outside the network. These savings add up. PBMs are estimated to lower costs by $1 trillion from 2023 to 2033.
PBMs are not the problem; they’re the countermeasure against rising drug prices. Dismantling PBMs would take away our most important check on pharmaceutical companies’ pricing power.
So, I say again, “Without a struggle, there can be no progress.” We Virginians, especially the most affected minorities, must reach our legislators and make our voices heard on this issue. As Frederick Douglass also said, “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”
Rev. Robert “JR” Gurley of Newport News is a pastor and chairman of the Frederick Douglass Freedom Alliance’s Virginia chapter.
