Mom-and-pop pharms seek cure for high costs
BY GABE HERMAN
Time’s running out for pharmacists
across New York City and
State seeking fi nancial relief
through legislation awaiting Governor
Andrew Cuomo’s signature.
A state bill to regulate prescription
drug middlemen, known as Pharmacy
Benefi t Managers (PBMs), was sent to
Cuomo’s desk last week after the State
Senate and Assembly passed it in June.
Independent pharmacists have been
advocating for the legislation, and are
now hoping that Cuomo will sign the
bill, which they say would prevent
PBMs from causing higher costs for
pharmacies and patients. The legislation
would require PBMs to be regulated
and licensed.
When the State Senate was studying
the effects of PBMs in June, the
Pharmaceutical Care Management
Association (PCMA), which represent
the nation’s PBMs, disputed fi ndings
that they were negatively impacting
the health care system. The group said
it reduces prescription drug costs for
New York employers and consumers,
and advocates to keep drugs accessible
and affordable.
“We believe that more can be done to
address rising drug prices,” PCMA said
Independent pharmacists rallied in October at City Hall in favor of the
legislation to regulate PBMs.
in a June statement. “We stand ready
to work with New York lawmakers to
increase competition and build on market
based tools in public programs and
private health insurance.”
The bill was sent to Governor Cuomo
on Dec. 17 and he has until Dec. 28 to
sign or veto it. In October, pharmacist
John Kaliabakos at Village Apothecary
COURTESY TOM CORSILLO
in Greenwich Village, who has advocated
for the bill, said Cuomo has been
a great ally to independent pharmacies,
and that he was expected to sign it.
“Up to this point, they have not been
regulated,” said Vito Colombo, owner
of Colombo’s Pharmacy in Queens.
PBMs can substitute medication without
the doctor’s approval, he said, and
can determine where patients can get
the medicine.
PBMs can charge insurers a higher
rate for claims, then reimburse pharmacies
at lower levels and keep the
difference, in a method called “spread
pricing.” The method cost New York
State around $300 million last year in
its Medicaid managed care program,
according to Pharmacists Society of the
State of New York.
Colombo said the problems from
PBMs have gotten worse in recent
years.
A survey of over 500 mom and pop
pharmacy owners in New York found
that 70 percent had to lay off employees
and reduce hours because of PBMs
shortchanging them.
Jason Conwall, a spokesman for Governor
Cuomo, told this paper that the
bill is under review, and said, “There
were more than 900 bills that passed
both houses at the end of session and
over 100 bills remain under review by
Counsel’s Offi ce and the Division of
the Budget. It is our responsibility to
ensure that the bills, as written, are responsible,
enforceable and accomplish
their intended purpose.”
The pharmacists are hoping the legislation
will be signed and acknowledged
it wouldn’t be a cure-all.
Brewer opposes Lenox Terrace rezoning proposal
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
Manhattan Borough President
Gale Brewer has said no to a
Lenox Terrace rezoning proposal
that would allow fi ve new 28-story
mixed-used buildings to be erected
at a Harlem complex.
The complex, located between 132nd
and 135th Streets, is owned by the Olnick
Organization and is already home
to six 16 story towers and fi ve one-story
commercial buildings.
“There are few instances where a
development the scale of the one proposed
by Lenox Terrace Development
Associates can be viewed as responsible,”
Brewer said in a statement.
The BP’s decision comes roughly one
month after Community Board 10 in
Harlem rejected the project in order to
protect the area’s history as an African-
American community, making it the
second community roadblock developers
have faced.
The complex was built as part of a
slum-clearing project by Robert Moses.
In 1958, after the fi rst buildings on the
block opened, the neighborhood then
began to be referred to as an oasis for
Black New Yorkers.
Under the proposal, the buildings
would provide 1,600 units of housing
Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer is opposed to rezoning plans for Lenox Terrace.
and 160,000 feet of retail space. About
400 of those units would be affordable
units. As part of the proposal Olnick
would create six acres of green space.
But Brewer rejected the proposal
because of a lack of “adequate public
and private investments” and that it
“promised to change the physical and
socioeconomic character of Central
Harlem.”
In her recommendation, she laid out
a few steps that Olnick could do to improve
the proposal — including submitting
a long-term commitment to housing
affordability and greater investment
in public infrastructure, open spaces
and schools, support for local entrepreneurs
and small businesses and to limit
commercial space to 10,000 square
feet.
The commercial space limit could be
exceeded if it was occupied by a qualifying
PHOTO VIA GOOGLE MAPS
FRESH food store, Brewer added.
“We appreciate the input we have
received from the Borough President
and Community Board 10, and look
forward to ensuring the proposal more
fully aligns with their recommendations
while continuing to make the case
for the plan and the opportunities it
will create,” said Tom Corsillo, spokesperson
for The Olnick Organization, in
an e-mail.
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