BIG ‼️ CVS pharmacy could be closing all pharmacies in Tennessee

Tennessee lawmakers are finally cracking down on Pharmacy Benefits Managers owning pharmacies and skyrocketing prices

CVS would rather close all locations than stop robbing Americans

“Tennessee is running CVS out of the state. Look at this letter from CVS. ‘A proposed law threatens to close all CVS pharmacies in the state of Tennessee.’

That's an aggressive sounding law. How are legislators justifying targeted business closures like CVS is suggesting here? Well, of course that's not the case. The law that CVS says will close all CVS pharmacies is SB 2040. The bill prohibits PBMs in the state from owning, operating or controlling pharmacies, and it aims to prohibit evasion of the law through corporate structuring, intermediary ownership management contracts, other stuff like that. 

So the bill is not closing pharmacies. It's stopping CVS Express Scripts and Optum the big PBMs from owning pharmacies. But to CVS, that means that they will close all their pharmacies. 

That means if CVS was forced to choose between their 132 brick and mortar pharmacies that they have on the corner of every major intersection, those corner store staples of Americana, they would rather shut all those down and board them up than give up their PBM. 

This is the same thing they said in as well, they would abandon the pharmacy business to retain the pharmacy middleman business. 

That should be a big waving red flag to anyone who's still uncertain about where the power lies and where the money goes. CVS isn't making their money when you go to the store. They're making their money. When your boss signs up with Aetna, then they have 10,000 levers they could pull to maximize their profit. 

Tennessee is taking a bold step that isn't even really that far down the road. It's only in committee, but that's enough to get CVS to start campaigning”