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The ongoing pharmacy closure crisis in Pennsylvania has become an alarming issue for communities throughout the commonwealth. Since 2020, over 1,000 community pharmacies have shuttered their doors, creating a massive pharmacy desert that has engulfed cities, towns, suburbs and rural communities.

A pharmacy desert is any area where residents no longer have reasonable access to a local pharmacy. Closures force patients to travel farther for basic care, increasing the likelihood of missed doses, delayed treatment and avoidable complications. Patients are faced with a diminished range of options for filling prescriptions, receiving vaccinations and consulting with trusted professionals regarding their medications.

Sadly, 213 community pharmacies operate in areas that will expand our desert crisis if they close.

These are not claims that can’t be verified. A coalition, Pennsylvanians for Pharmacy Access, has created an interactive map of the commonwealth’s growing desert. You can search it by desert areas, pharmacy closures, pharmacies under threat of closure, counties and legislative districts.

Recent action in Washington to rein in pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) — the powerful “middlemen” that manage prescription drug benefits — will not take effect for years. Pennsylvania patients and communities need action now before it’s too late.

PBMs sit between health plans, drug manufacturers and pharmacies, often reimbursing pharmacies at rates that can be below what it actually costs the pharmacy to purchase the medication.

Think about that: PBMs routinely practice what’s called spread pricing — charging health plans more than they reimburse pharmacies and pocketing the difference. Worse, many reimbursements are actually set at less than what pharmacists actually pay for lifesaving drugs. Then they impose retroactive fees to steepen the losses for community pharmacies. In a final blow, PBMs steer patients toward pharmacies they own. All of it is done with little to no oversight or transparency. As the pharmacy closure crisis worsens and our vast desert expands, PBMs are stuffing millions of dollars into their pockets, and no one questions them.

We know this because while Pennsylvania Medicaid enrollment has largely remained steady, Medicaid prescription drug spending in Pennsylvania increased from $1.4 billion in 2013 to $4.6 billion in 2022. Patients didn’t get that money. Community pharmacies certainly didn’t. The commonwealth didn’t.

Pennsylvania must enact meaningful PBM reforms now, paired with strict enforcement, rather than waiting for federal timelines to catch up to local realities. Too many communities with only a single pharmacy left don’t have that much time.

Keeping pharmacies open requires a system that is transparent, predictable and fair. Here’s how state lawmakers and the Shapiro administration should fix it:

• Raise the Medicaid dispensing fee to meet the federal standard. Dispensing a prescription isn’t simply handing over a bottle. It includes safety checks, clinical review, patient counseling, coordination with prescribers and compliance requirements.

• Ban spread pricing and require fair reimbursement for all pharmacies. PBMs should fairly reimburse every pharmacy, not only those they own, with transparent pricing benchmarks.

• Guarantee payment for pharmacist clinical services. Pharmacists provide essential clinical care, such as immunizations and other time-based services. Paying for those services expands primary care capacity, reduces avoidable hospitalizations and improves outcomes.

• Prevent PBMs from steering patients to pharmacies they own.

• Move to a single PBM model for Medicaid — the Pennsylvania state-funded health care program. With clear, uniform rules and accountability, we can stop PBMs from making up their own rules as they go.

Senate Bill 1186, sponsored by a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by state Sens. Lisa Boscola, D-Lehigh, and Judy Ward, R-Blair, would protect patient access to pharmacies by establishing a single pharmacy benefit administrator (PBA) model for the Medicaid managed care program. This legislation holds real promise for slowing, and potentially reversing, Pennsylvania’s pharmacy desert.

Pennsylvania has an opportunity to create a national model that puts people — not PBMs — first. Every Pennsylvanian deserves to get the care they need close to home. We cannot afford to wait for federal reforms to be fully enacted. The time for Pennsylvania to act is now, before the next closure becomes another community’s last pharmacy.

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Victoria Elliott is CEO of the Pennsylvania Pharmacists Association, a member of Pennsylvanians for Protecting Pharmacy Access.

HARRISBURG, Pa. —

The I-83 ramp to 13th Street in Harrisburg is back open one day after a sinkhole closed it.

Video below: Crews work to repair sinkhole.

PennDOT said the sinkhole was too big to allow traffic to pass safely. So, they filled it with rocks then paved over it.

Fritzi Schreffler from PennDOT expressed relief that no vehicles were directly affected when the sinkhole appeared.

"We're really, really grateful that nobody was over top of it when it happened," Schreffler said.

The incident was reported around 1:30 p.m. Thursday by the driver of a car carrier who noticed the sinkhole while traveling on I-83.

"It was enough that we had to bring in an excavator," Schreffler said.

Concrete was poured into the sinkhole and needs to cure overnight. On Friday morning, crews returned to prep for a subbase, then asphalt trucks arrived.

Schreffler explained the repair process.

The region has experienced several sinkholes recently, including another in Harrisburg and one on Route 772 in Lancaster County.

Sinkholes common in Pennsylvania due to geological composition

Schreffler noted that sinkholes are common in Pennsylvania due to the area's geological composition.

"So unfortunately, this area of Pennsylvania is really prone to sinkholes," Schreffler said. "There's a lot of limestone down under the ground. And so, it's not solid ground the whole way down. There's a lot of rocks and there's water that comes through."

As the ground disintegrates, it becomes unstable, leading to potential collapses.

"And as that disintegrates, it becomes unsteady and unstable, and then the ground can collapse, and it's not something we can predict. It just happens," Schreffler said.

Stay with WGAL for updates on this developing story.

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At a Harrisburg conference, Pennsylvania business leaders discussed hiring challenges, aging workforce issues and tech advancements to tackle hiring challenges.

DAUPHIN COUNTY, Pa. — Pennsylvania business leaders and human resources professionals gathered in Harrisburg for Pa. Chamber’s human resources conference on Thursday.

Hiring challenges, new labor laws and emerging technology are among the challenges facing employers, and businesses are looking to build and maintain the new workforce.

Leaders like Brandon Smith, talent acquisition specialist with Wohlsen Construction Services, are focusing on hiring the next generation.

“We have a little bit more positions open than normal. We have a lot of good growth going on here. Our biggest challenge is just trying to match what our hiring teams are looking for, matching the qualifications and trying to find the right candidates,” Smith said.

Smith said that the company is battling with an aging construction population.

“We have some people [who] have been there 40, 50 years,” he said.

Organizers said the goal is to help employers stay ahead of fast-changing workforce trends and new regulations that affect businesses statewide.

“HR managers are concerned about finding their next generation of talent, but then they're also concerned about retaining that talent,” Lauren Holubec, Pa. Workforce Development Association executive director, said.

And senior vice president of government affairs for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry Alex Halper said employers in the skilled workforce sector, like Smith, face a difficult reality when finding next-generation laborers.

“We're expected to have a 300,000-worker deficit in really just the next few years, by 2030,” Halper said.

Speakers shared insights into policy, regulations, upskilling and retention-based programs that companies can implement to prevent turnover.

“Retain the talent that they have, meaning great health insurance benefits," Paula Beleck, senior benefit consultant with the Pa. Chamber of Insurance, said.

Leaders shared ways to build community partnerships with childcare centers, transportation services and housing communities to provide employees with greater stability and benefits. They are hopeful that the companies walked away with the knowledge to create a better workplace with thoughtful ways to include employees in the conversation.

"Employers and companies that are willing to make changes and ask the question 'why?' are going to be the most successful," Holubec said.

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HARRISBURG — A home financing firm offered its customers Amazon gift cards if they submitted testimony to a Pennsylvania House committee ahead of a hearing on a bill the company opposed.

The offer, made in a February email by Palo Alto company Point to its users and viewed by Spotlight PA, has upset the committee’s legislators, who argue it calls into question the firm’s argument.

“It’s an outrageous corruption of our legislative process to offer a financial inducement for testimony, and on top of that, to not disclose it,” said state Rep. Arvind Venkat, D-Allegheny, who is sponsoring legislation to regulate the firm and its products.

State Rep. Tim Twardzik, R-Schuylkill, a co-sponsor of the proposal, added in his own comments Wednesday that the offer was “pay to play.”

Pennsylvania has lax ethics laws overall. And the appearance of paid, professional lobbyists before lawmakers is a constitutionally protected and normal part of the legislative process at all levels of government.

But lobbyists, Venkat noted, must disclose who pays them. And Point is not yet registered to lobby the General Assembly, according to state records. The customers, whose testimony was included within a packet of meeting materials, only present themselves as citizens and homeowners and do not reference the payments.

Venkat strongly criticized the tactic.

“The only way that the industry seems to be able to get people to say something nice about it is to offer a financial inducement, and they conveniently have decided not to reveal that to my colleagues and me — who have the responsibility to weigh in a deliberative fashion testimony before us,” Venkat added. “So it calls into question their credibility, and it really raises questions about the product.”

Matthew Windsor, deputy general counsel for Point, confirmed the email Wednesday morning when asked about the gift card deal in the hearing of the state House Commerce Committee.

He said the payments were a means of quickly collecting testimony for the hearing, adding that “we did not screen anything.”

Point’s business model is to provide homeowners in need of cash with a lump sum payment using their house as collateral.

But rather than paying the loan back gradually, the homeowner remunerates the lender in another lump sum — calculated based on a number of factors — when they sell their home or if the homeowner decides to end the contract. These payments can end up being higher than the initial loan.

Point sent the gift card offer in a Feb. 24 email with the subject line “Last chance: share your story to protect HEI access.”

“Regulatory action in Pennsylvania could impact our ability to fund Home Equity Investments (HEIs) in your state,” Point’s email said. “You can help protect HEIs by submitting a written testimonial. Below is a template — just personalize it with your experience and send.”

Among the prompts were: “I was looking for funds to: [Insert your financial goal]”; “Other options weren’t a good fit for me because: [Explain why traditional loans, credit cards, or other solutions didn’t work]”; and “My HEI has given me: [Share how having access to HEI funds has helped you achieve your goals or improved your situation].”

If submitted, the sender would receive a $50 Amazon gift card “as a thank-you for your time and support.”

All told, 23 citizen emails opposing Venkat’s bill were included in a committee testimony packet viewed by Spotlight PA. They include stories of individuals using equity investments to pay for home repairs, college tuition, property taxes and credit card debt; 10 directly quote Point’s prompts.

Costs are unknown by design

On the company’s website, Point says its products allow homeowners to “unlock your home equity with no monthly payments, no income requirements, and no need for perfect credit.”

Unlike a mortgage, in which the total value is known up-front thanks to its fixed interest rate over a fixed time period, the amount a homeowner pays back to Point after they get their initial lump sum is unknown.

A sample contract from the industry’s trade group that was included in its legislative testimony stipulated that the return for one of these lending firms would be a higher percentage of the home sale value than it initially paid to the homeowner. On top of that, the return is designed to shift based on how the home’s value changes.

Combined with fees baked into the contract, the homeowner’s closing payment can end up being higher than the initial loan, even if the home’s value decreases. And if a recipient fails to pay back what they owe in full, the firm can foreclose.

Point and the trade organization representing similar lenders argue they provide flexibility to homeowners who want to access their home equity for cash without adding additional monthly payments.

“I’m sure they sound like new concepts to you,” said Jim Riccitelli, CEO of the lender Unlock Technologies, another lender. But “there’s nothing inherently wrong with those things. Those are simply … how we generate return. That’s how we price the contract, in the same way that there’s nothing wrong with the interest rate on the loan.”

However, federal and state regulators have questioned if consumers are aware of the risks that come with this product.

A 2025 report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that reviewed complaints against the industry found homeowners “felt frustrated or even misled about various aspects of home equity contracts—including confusion about the financing terms, surprise at the size of the repayment amounts, disputes about appraisal values, difficulty with refinancing due to the existence of the home equity contract, and frustration that they felt their only option to get out of the contract was to sell their home.”

In 2020, Pennsylvania regulators ruled the product falls outside the state consumer protection law covering lending, according to a letter the industry shared with legislators. As introduced, Venkat’s bill would place the industry under this law, which sets maximum interest rates, transparency requirements and penalties for breaking any requirements.

Industry members told lawmakers such regulations would effectively ban their product from Pennsylvania, and argued for a chance to design different rules. Venkat told Spotlight PA that a ban isn’t his intent, and that he thinks their claim is overstated.

“The question that I would ask the coalition is — ‘Have you stopped selling these products in those states [with stricter laws]?’ ” he said. “And the answer to that, as far as I know, is no.”

As for working with the industry to develop state rules more to its liking, Venkat said its tactics haven’t won any favors.

“Their efforts on this legislation makes me very skeptical of their motivations in terms of coming to an agreement that would be to the benefit of Pennsylvanians,” he said.

BEFORE YOU GO… If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at . Spotlight PA is funded by who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.

This story has been updated: An earlier version misattributed a quote from a testifier. It was said by Jim Riccitelli, CEO of the lender Unlock Technologies