Show your support for local pharmacies

With the 2024 legislative session underway, it is time to show your support for local pharmacies. This session is a budget session, yet bills will still be heard by the House and Senate.

Two important bills that impact us right here in the Bighorn Basin and Big Horn County support our pharmacies.

Those are SF0100 and HB0173. You may read the bills in their entirety at wyoleg.gov/Legislation/2024.

In a nutshell, SF0100 requires insurance companies to pay pharmacies for medicine they have already dispensed to patients. These are meds that are covered under the insurance. Yet, some companies take months and months to reimburse the pharmacy. How many of us would spend $5,000, perform a service/provide the goods and then wait, in some cases over a year, to be paid? Why is it okay to do this to our small businesses who are also our friends and neighbors? It shouldn’t be.

HB0173 allows us to choose which pharmacy we want to use. The majority of us want to support a small local business. We pay a lot of money for our insurance only to have companies tell us who we can buy our meds from.

You don’t see the mail order med companies contributing to our local economy, schools, non-profits or sponsoring events or our youth. If you have an emergency after hours or on the weekends, who is going to come in to provide you the meds you need? Our local pharmacies. Even if you can reach say, Express Scripts, they may answer the phone, but they can’t hand out anything the same day.

Too many of us complain about our government, policies, politicians, etc., yet don’t take the time to reach out to them or vote. You have given up your rights by not doing either.

Of course, when you do reach out, use the three P’s: Professional, Polite and Passionate. As Grandma Willa reminded us often, “You get more bees with honey than with vinegar.”