House Bill 1959<\/a>, also known as the Fair Rx Act, if passed would change how pharmacies do business by limiting the power of pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, in the prescription drug system.<\/p>\nIf passed, the bill could have major impacts on chains like CVS, which both manages drug benefits and operates pharmacies. The change could cause CVS pharmacies to close across the state.<\/p>\n
According to CVS, their pharmacists care for more than 1.5 million patients in Tennessee. Those affected by the bill if passed include people who shop and fill prescriptions at CVS, those who get prescriptions from CVS Specialty, and those who seek care at MinuteClinic.<\/p>\n
Sponsor says change is needed<\/p>\n
Rep. Rick Scarbrough (R-District 33) is the sponsor of the bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is something that we have to change the structure of to remove this conflict of interest,\u201d Scarbrough said. \u201cAs far as access, I quite frankly have a lot of confidence in not just the people in the room, but in the state of Tennessee.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Opponents speak out<\/p>\n
CVS MinuteClinic healthcare provider Michelle Lawson voiced concern about the bill\u2019s impact on patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand I may stand to lose my job if this bill passes, but more importantly my patients, my community \u2014 they\u2019re the ones that are going to suffer from this,\u201d Lawson said.<\/p>\n
Caregiver Natalie Elliot Handy, the daughter of a CVS Specialty patient, also testified before the subcommittee in opposition to the bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cI absolutely urge you to find an alternative solution to a bill that would allow my mom not to be negatively impacted by this legislation,\u201d Handy said.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Handy (pictured L) appears in a hearing.<\/p>\n
The bill now advances to the House of Representatives\u2019 insurance committee.<\/p>\n
For more news across the state, click here<\/a>.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSON, Tenn. \u2014 A proposed state bill presented before the insurance subcommittee Wednesday could affect many Tennesseans and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-323280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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