Confused about what exactly was happening last week in the #CVSDeniesCare debacle? I broke things down for Slate.
Unless you’re a pharmacist, you shouldn’t be upset that “pharmacy benefit managers” like CVS/Caremark try to negotiate down how much they’ll reimburse pharmacies for prescription drugs. There’s absolutely no reason to think CVS/Caremark is targeting birth control specifically, and if PBMs didn’t try to negotiate reimbursement rates with pharmacies, the cost of buying health insurance would skyrocket.
Although I didn’t cover the issue of political contributions in my Slate piece, it’s also worth noting that in the 2018 campaign cycle, of CVS, Target, Walmart, Rite-Aid and Walgreens, only CVS donated more to Democrats than they did to Republicans.
