Local Pharmacists Planning Protest

Many privately owned drugstores across Ventura County will dramatize the trouble they have competing in an era of large insurance companies and managed care when they turn off their lights and cover their store windows at noon today.

Billed as “High Noon for Your Local Pharmacy,” pharmacists organized the hourlong protest to spotlight the “showdown” that many pharmacy owners say they are facing with large insurance companies. Ventura County druggists will join thousands of pharmacists across the United States in the national day of protest against an industry they say is driving away customers.

According to local pharmacists, many insurance companies instruct their patients to shop for drugs only at certain pharmacies or buy medication from mail-order firms.

“We have lost a lot of customers because their health maintenance organizations have exclusive contracts with other pharmacies,” said John Skomand, owner-pharmacist of Seeber’s Discount Pharmacy in Santa Paula. “The customers have to be uprooted and change all their records over to another pharmacy.”

Skomand said two privately owned pharmacies shut down in Oxnard last month, largely due to managed-care practices that cut into their business.

Although today’s blackouts are scheduled to last between five minutes and an hour, pharmacists will hand out pamphlets detailing the plight of the small business throughout the day.