LANSING,MI (WTVB) – A healthcare crisis is unfolding across Michigan as pharmacy closures accelerate, leaving thousands of residents facing the reality of “pharmacy deserts.”
Since 2024, more than 270 pharmacies of all types have permanently shut down across the state.
Independent neighborhood pharmacies have been hit particularly hard, accounting for over 90 of those losses, alongside sweeping national consolidations from major chains like Rite Aid and Walgreens.
Industry experts and local owners place the blame squarely on third-party Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs).
These corporate middlemen slash reimbursement rates often below the actual wholesale cost of the medications, driving local community drugstores out of business.
The fallout from this shifting retail landscape is hitting local communities directly in Branch County, where options have shrunk in recent years as well . Residents in the Coldwater area have had to adapt following closure of the local Rite Aid at 450 E. Chicago Street, which left a void and had its prescriptions transferred to Walgreens.
As local choices thin out out and independent operators struggle to keep their doors open under severe financial constraints, advocates are urgently warning state lawmakers that without immediate legislative PBM reform in Lansing, more towns and cities risk losing vital access to face-to-face pharmaceutical care and life-saving medications
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