Health care pharmacy chain CVS has spent $1.3 million on political TV advertisements across Tennessee to push back against a bill targeting its ownership of a pharmacy benefit manager, Federal Communications Commission public inspection files show.
Tennessee lawmakers want to ban a pharmacy from also owning a pharmacy benefit manager, which negotiates drug reimbursement rates between insurance companies and pharmacies, essentially serving as a middleman.
CVS has warned that House Bill 1959/Senate Bill 2040 would threaten “pharmacy access for patients” by forcing it to close all 134 Tennessee pharmacies and eliminate 2,000 jobs. CVS has taken particular issue with the legislation because it is the only pharmacy benefit manager (CVS Caremark) that also owns physical stores in Tennessee.
The advertising campaign includes purchases in all six of Tennessee’s major TV markets, and was combined with text alerts from the company encouraging people to contact local representatives.
“This legislation is bad for Tennessee, for the more than 1.5 million patients we serve and for the more than 2,000 colleagues who could lose their jobs,” Amy Thibault, a spokesperson for CVS, said in an email. “Already tens of thousands of Tennesseans contacted their elected officials. We expect that number to grow, and we hope legislators will listen to their concerns.”