Lift the gags in the pharmacy | Crain's Detroit Business

Lift the gags in the pharmacy | Crain's Detroit Business:
"It's time to take the gags off pharmacists and end a practice that makes it a disadvantage to have health insurance.
A push is underway in Lansing to free pharmacists to tell patients when there is a cheaper way to fill their prescriptions, and it deserves to succeed.
...The way gag rules work is this: Pharmacy benefit management companies, the middle men in the system who negotiate drug prices between insurers and pharmacies, insert a requirement into contracts that bans pharmacists from telling patients when the cash price for medicines is cheaper than the price when processed through insurance.
Often, patients will pay the full co-payment for drugs even if the cash price is lower than the co-pay. The pharmacy benefit manager typically pockets the difference, in a practice known as a "clawback."...
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