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The White House and Senate Democrats are working to make sweeping reforms to our drug pricing system.

Lowering the cost of prescriptions was a critical and widely supported objective of the now-dead Build Back Better bill, especially for Hispanic and Latino individuals. Disproportionately likely to be uninsured and suffer from chronic conditions that require medicine to treat, Hispanic Americans often face outsized difficulties affording their medications. 42% of Hispanics have reported not taking medications as prescribed due to the cost.

Agreement on how to lower drug costs, however, is still elusive.

The answer I wish to propose is simple: to lower drug costs, cut out the middlemen in the pharmaceutical supply chain, namely Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs). These corporate go-betweens negotiate for insurers with drug makers over what medications insurance plans will cover and at what cost to the insurer. A recent study from the Berkeley Research Group found that in 2019, for the first time, more than half of every dollar spent on drugs in the U.S. went toward supply chain middlemen.

If you find yourself asking what value these PBMs are actually adding to our healthcare system, you're not alone. In fact, billionaire investor and "Shark Tank" TV host Mark Cuban announced in January that he is starting a new company in the conviction that there's a better way.

What if, instead of going to the pharmacy to pick up your prescription, a service drove directly to the manufacturing facilities of Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, or any other pharmaceutical company and picked up your medications for you.

You and your doctor settle on the medication you need. Your doctor zaps it to your prescription service, you pay electronically, and your service ships it to your home.

Your purchasing service is going to be buying in sufficient quantities to get you the best discount from manufacturers — much better than you could do by calling the drug maker yourself, negotiating, and buying direct (if that were even legal, which it isn't). That bulk buying power is the advantage to you of using the service. For managing your medication purchases, your service will charge a low, flat markup on the prices it negotiates with drug makers.

So two questions, one for the purchasing service, one for you. For the service: what's the flat markup rate on top of the best discount from manufacturers that would enable the business to run competitively and profitably? For you: how much of a difference would using the service make compared to what you're now paying?

Let's at the examples Mr. Cuban has announced. His online pharmacy, the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company (MCCPDC), is a registered pharmaceutical wholesaler that buys drugs directly from manufacturers and sells them directly to consumers. It offers more than 100 generic drugs to consumers at a flat 15% markup.

The result? You get drugs like imatinib, a common treatment for leukemia, for the price of $47 per month, when the monthly "list" retail price is $9,657 and the lowest price otherwise available with a voucher is $120. That's a 60% discount off the best deal in the current market.

This kind of savings show that what's driving up prescription costs isn’t greedy drug makers jacking up prices. Instead, it's supply chain middlemen like PBMs, who negotiate prices between the manufacturers and insurance companies, Medicare, employers and other health care payers. They make large profits for themselves by securing massive discounts and rebates which mostly don't go toward lower prices for patients.

When an entrepreneur like Mark Cuban sees a situation like this, he sees a business opportunity. When members of Congress see it, they should be outraged. There's no reason middlemen should be taking more than three times as much as Mark Cuban needs to get people their medications.

To truly Build Back Better, cut them out.

Dr. Yanira Cruz is the President and CEO of the National Hispanic Council on Aging.