A Tennessee bill that CVS Health has claimed would force it to close all its pharmacies in the state would not require such closures — and would create a more even playing field, said local independent pharmacists in Chattanooga.
State lawmakers are pushing to ban pharmacy benefit managers, the middlemen between insurance companies and drugstores, from owning pharmacies. CVS has a unique stake because it owns the pharmacy benefit manager CVS Caremark along with 134 pharmacies and two specialty locations in Tennessee.
The bill would not force CVS to close its pharmacies, which would be a business decision, said Mollie Gallaher, a pharmacist whose family owns the Signal Mountain Pharmacy.
“I hope that, if this bill passes, that CVS does the right thing and chooses to keep their stores open, and through this bill, they have that choice,” Gallaher said in a phone call. “I think they owe that to their employees and their customers.”
The independent pharmacy neighbors a CVS pharmacy on the next block. CVS has said it could not feasibly split up its pharmacy benefit management arm from its physical pharmacies.