02/18/2026
Birds eye view: TODAY is the day the Senate votes on SB 360 to protect Kansas patients and pharmacies. Call or email your senator ASAP and ask them to vote yes, and to vote yes to a CLEAN bill (not amended). There is a high likelihood they will “compromise” and cut out a section, which is the section that provides the only safety net for rural pharmacies….. your hometown pharmacy!!
Into the weeds: This section the want to cut requires that PBMs who own or have affiliated pharmacies (which is huge conflict of interest already) must pay the competition the same amount for the same service as they pay themselves, and provides for a data-based drug payment model minimum of NADAC + $10.50 (NADAC, which is a price nationally set based on actual purchase data and cost, as opposed to the MAC which is a completely made up # based on corporate greed and allows PBMs to pay themselves hundreds of dollars and pharmacies pennies for the exact same drug) plus a “reasonable” (actually still too low) fee to the pharmacy to cover their overhead costs. This model protects pharmacies from the abuses of the middlemen, and will save insurance companies and the employers who pay for coverage THOUSANDS if not millions of dollars in spread pricing and rebate money.
For brevity, the state of Kansas Medicaid currently pays NADAC + $10.50. This was the dispense fee amount that covered dispensing costs over a decade ago and has never been adjusted for increased costs (remember how COVID made life unaffordable? Literally everything we pay for has increased, often doubled) My pharmacy dispense cost is well over $15/rx on average. A survey done just a couple months ago show cost to dispense is $11+ for chains in Kansas, and I dont know if you’ve been to one of those lately, but they’ve kept their average low by short staffing and closing, leaving patients vulnerable to errors and unsafe waits for needed medicine. Pharmacies are asking for a bandaid to keep them afloat for one, maybe two years longer so that the world can see through the transparency piece that they’ve been taken advantage of for years, and hopefully choose to use some of those savings to keep pharmacy afloat after that to maintain patient access.
Last year, 16 pharmacies in Kansas closed for good. The PBMs are not coming in behind those pharmacies and opening their own stores to take care of patients. Those are just pharmacy deserts where patients now have to drive miles or choose mail order. Not everyone can drive (no vehicle, cost to drive a vehicle, elderly, seizures, etc). And mail order doesnt work when you need a medicine today (antibiotic, new cancer treatment, new heart medicine, replacement for what got lost in the mail, etc). The rate of pharmacy closures is rapidly increasing.
Not to mention the economic impacts of the current model. None of these big PBMs exist in Kansas and all of this Kansas money, including tax dollars (tricare, medicare) is leaving the state to corporations who don’t pay Kansas taxes and don’t give a dime back to Kansas Communities.
If nothing changes and we continue on the current trajectory, Clearwater will not have a pharmacy in the next few years. We have a hard working team of people who are desperately trying to find solutions to the prescription losses daily. And a phenomenally supportive community who chooses over and over to support local and keep us afloat. Thank you 🥹❤️
Urge your senator to vote YES to a CLEAN senate bill 360 and protect Kansas employers, preserve patient access to care, stop the spread of pharmacy deserts, and keep YOUR dollars in YOUR communities!
