Key facts
- Tennessee and Arkansas laws bar companies from owning both pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers, which negotiate drug prices for insurers.
- The push could force CVS to sell off hundreds of its stores, according to the report.
- Republican supporters of the measures have tracked President Donald Trump's populism and consumer frustration over living costs.
- Trump has said drug prices are already declining because of his pressure on drugmakers, including the threat of tariffs.
- Drug prices fell nearly 3% in the year ending in July, the largest drop in more than half a century, according to the report.
A group of Republican-led states, along with some Democratic-led ones, is preparing to bar companies from owning both pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers, the intermediaries that negotiate drug prices on behalf of insurance plans. The move follows Tennessee and Arkansas, where Republican governors Bill Lee and Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed such laws, according to the report.
The push could force CVS to sell off hundreds of its stores, the report said. Republicans who had not previously supported breaking up conglomerates of the kind that own many US pharmacies have come to back the idea, tracking President Donald Trump's populism and consumer frustration over the cost of living.
The laws aim to lower drug prices that Trump says are already declining because of his pressure on drugmakers, including the threat of tariffs. Drug prices fell nearly 3% in the year ending in July, the largest drop in more than half a century, according to the report.