In the News

With its initial rollout beginning in 2026, the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program has caused significant strain on the cash flow of independent pharmacies.

The National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) is sounding the alarm over the federal government’s implementation of the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program (MDPNP) after a recent survey of its members revealed significant financial distress, according to a news release.

A bill introduced last year aiming to ensure long-term care (LTC) pharmacies can continue to supply and dispense Medicare Part D drugs despite lower prices resulting from the price negotiation program will need to be tweaked to ensure the intended relief is retroactive, according to Alan Rosenbloom, executive director of the Senior Care Pharmacy Coalition (SCPC).

The Senior Care Pharmacy Coalition (SCPC), the leading voice for the nation’s long-term care (LTC) pharmacy community, released the following statement about the passage of PBM reform.

For more than two years now, pharmacists who are the sole provider of prescriptions for the nation’s most vulnerable, often chronically ill patients have begged Congress for relief from a devastating pricing change.

Provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA, signed into law in 2022) affecting long-term care (LTC) pharmacies that went live January 1, 2026, are likely to destabilize the industry, according to a survey of senior care pharmacies.

For older adult Latinos across California’s rural Central Valley, long-term care is more than a healthcare service — it is a lifeline. It allows our parents and grandparents to age with dignity, surrounded by familiar communities, culture, and family. Today, that lifeline is no longer merely threatened — it has been compromised.

I’ve long been an advocate for growing our business community in a thoughtful and sustainable way. What’s often missing from the economic development conversation is health care. Access to affordable, reliable care isn’t just a quality-of-life issue — it’s a business issue. When workers are healthy and families can stay in their communities, employers can grow, jobs can be filled, and local economies thrive. In rural areas especially, a strong health care system is essential infrastructure for economic growth.

As a nurse anesthesiologist and owner of a nursing practice, I’ve come to really appreciate the collaborative ecosystem that is healthcare. Even something as simple as a prescription shows how interconnected our system is — you’ve got scientists developing treatments, providers making clinical decisions, and pharmacists making sure everything’s used properly, each bringing essential expertise to the table.

During the Energy and Commerce Committee’s January 8 hearing, Legislative Proposals to Support Patient Access to Medicare Services, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA), an original co-sponsor of H.R. 5031, the Preserving Patient Access to Long-Term Care Pharmacies Act, underscored the urgent need for the Committee and Congress to advance this critical legislation to protect seniors’ access to […]