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Former New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie has long been vocal in his criticisms of former President Donald Trump. However, when asked to answer questions pertaining to his past as a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry, Christie appears to be tight-lipped.

In a recent article, Breitbart contributor Sean Moran outlined the potential risks posed by pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to consumers.

According to a 2016 Wall Street Journal piece, PBMs act as intermediaries between payors such as insurance companies or corporations and other parties in the healthcare system.

They are able to make money through service fees from large customer contracts for processing prescriptions, operating mail-order pharmacies, and negotiating with pharmacies and drug makers.

Christie has highlighted the need to be mindful of these practices when it comes to consumer protection.

Moran noted that Christie slammed PBMs during an interview with CNBC this month saying, “You do not hear any politician come on here and talk about the PBMs, the pharmacy benefit managers.”

At the launch of his presidential bid, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie pointed to Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) as a source of “real evil” in the healthcare system.

He argued that while pharmaceutical companies offer extensive discounts on their drugs, very few of these savings are passed on to consumers.

“They are taking from anywhere from 50% to 70% of the rebates that pharmaceutical companies mean to go to the customer and they’re taking them purely to be middlemen,” the former governor insisted.

“We need to have some common sense reform of that, because for middle men to be keeping the majority of those discounts that the pharmaceutical companies give to try to decrease the rate that you pay at the counter is just wrong,” Christie complained.

Despite his criticisms of PBMs for allegedly pocketing discounts offered by the pharmaceutical industry, Governor Chris Christie has profited off of lobbying on behalf of that very same industry through his firm Christie 55 Solutions.

To further complicate matters, in April of this year Christie joined the advisory board of Cytogel Pharma, a company that manufactures the non-opioid painkiller Exparel.

Moreover, Rich Bagger, Christie’s former chief of staff before joining the governor’s team in Trenton, previously worked for the pharmaceutical industry.

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23 comments

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  • “They are taking from anywhere from 50% to 70% of the rebates that pharmaceutical companies mean to go to the customer and they’re taking them purely to be middlemen,”

    Typically, these “middlemen” exist because they provide valuable services to consumers. In this case, shopping the various sources and getting the best deals by shopping and volume purchasing. Often the manufacturers in those industries don’t like that as it forces them to compete and keeps their margins in check. So this could be just more lobbying by Christy for the pharmaceutical industry.

    But I’m willing to consider other possibilities. However, I’d need to see the study behind Christy’s allegations and it wasn’t provided. Nor could I find a study making this claim by searching the Internet.

    • US is the only country dumb enough to pay 100% of the R&D costs for every Pharma company in the world.
      No wonder we pay more than double for all drugs!
      You can go to Canada or Mexico and get the same stuff for less than 50% of what it costs in the US.
      Why isn’t Congress investigating that?

  • Although Christie did better in the debate than I expected even though I think he placed number eight. However if were to get the nomination, i would reluctantly vote for him rather than Biden or any one the democrats may potentially replace Biden with.

  • Christie is pissed at trump for not putting on his staff!! He had nothing but praise for trump when he was running then changed his tune once trump didn’t use him anywhere!!! Chris christie is a democrat!! He may say he’s a republican but he’s a democrat at heart

  • Shamu is a dyed in the wool swamp rat. He proposed christopher wray to Trump as FBI director. Wray and jack smith worked together in the Div of public ethics during the obama DoJ days….the connection goes full circle

  • A typical democrat, slams others for what he has done, this is one evil person, just think we have him to thank for recommending Our Crooked FBI Chief, and also The past crooked AG, that sat on his ass , and did nothing, he was incharge when 27 agents , with CNN in tow broke down Roger Stones door.

  • He is another backstabbing lying cheating stealing politician, he was all for Trump until he got a win due to Trump, then he turned and kiss obama azz he needs to get out of politics permanently

  • Christie is a huge RINO !!!! Just look at his two face, fork tongue, talks out of the side of his mouth spewing nonsense !!!!! A crooked, liar, cheating, swamp scum politician !!!! Not worthy to even talk politics !!!!!!! Even Trump doesn’t like his filthy ethics !!!!