Michigan could become a “pharmacy desert” due to the closures

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Depending on where you live, your access to medications could look very different in the coming months, with at least two major pharmacies reportedly closing multiple locations.

As FOX 17 has learned, it will happen quickly.

PROBLEMS WITH PRESCRIPTION MEDICINES: Michigan could become a “pharmacy desert” due to closures

“I mean, it will be a pharmacy desert,” said John Cakmakci.

Rite Aid will “essentially go out of business,” as he put it. The company filed for bankruptcy in October 2023.

“I give Rite Aid a lot of credit for hanging in there and trying to make it work,” he said. “It worked, and we’re seeing it.”

Cakmakci is president of United Food & Commercial Workers Local 951, a union that once represented more than 1,000 Rite Aid employees at 89 different locations in southern and western Michigan.

That number has already been reduced to 240 employees at just 47 locations, he said.

READ MORE: Spring Lake Rite Aid closes in Michigan, among other locations

“Next week it will be less,” he warned. “In two weeks it will be even less.”

He suspects that by mid or late September, all locations in their area of ​​responsibility will no longer exist.

“Some (pharmacists) will say, ‘Wow, we can say goodbye to these people.’ What I’m saying is we should say goodbye to them now because it’s going to happen quickly,” Cakmakci said.

He cited the opioid settlement as one of the main reasons for the company’s demise. Rite Aid agreed to a $30 million settlement in 2022.

They are not the only ones.

Walgreens will pay more than $5.5 billion over the next 15 years. On Thursday, the company announced it would close 25 percent of its 8,600 stores nationwide. It’s unclear how many, if any, of those will be in Michigan.

RELATED TOPICS: Walgreens takes a close look at underperforming stores

“You all have your hand stuck in the cookie jar and now, you know, it’s time to pay,” Cakmakci said.

Eric Roath, director of government affairs for the Michigan Pharmacists Association, said reimbursements have also been declining for at least a decade. He blamed pharmacy benefit managers, who act as intermediaries between patients and pharmacies.

“They are the ones who, in our opinion, are profiting from rising drug prices, making it harder for patients to get their medications at an affordable price, while at the same time making it harder for pharmacies to stay in business and serve those patients,” Roath said.

Roath said a law was passed in 2022 to counteract this trend, called the Pharmacy Benefit Manager Licensure and Regulation Act. It took effect on Jan. 1, 2024, but Roath said enforcement has been slow at best.

“This law has been in place for six months and there is still very little enforcement,” he said. “I met with a pharmacy this morning who showed me concrete examples of how the law continues to be violated.”

Roath and Cakmakci mentioned that this will not only affect pharmacists themselves, who will now lose their jobs, but also consumers.

Roath said that currently 90% of Americans live within five miles of a pharmacy.

Cakmakci knows that this will not happen anytime soon.

“If you live in southwest Michigan, sometimes there is this snow belt, and you may have to walk 20 miles through 16 inches of snow to get to a pharmacy to get medicine for your child or loved ones to get better,” he said.

Cakmakci said Rite Aid employees at the affected locations have protected pensions and have been offered severance packages, but now he must try to help them find other jobs.

FOX 17 has reached out to Rite Aid to learn more but has not yet received a response.

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