Democrats and Republicans Take Important Steps To Safeguard America’s Prescription Drug Markets From Pharmacy Benefit Managers
Washington, D.C. – Members of Congress across the political spectrum are stepping up to curtail the deleterious effects that pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) have on our prescription drug markets. On Wednesday, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced the “Ending the Prescription Drug Kickback Act of 2023” and today, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Ranking Member Mike Crapo (R-ID) released a “bipartisan framework” to crack down on PBMs. In response, the American Economic Liberties Project issued the following statement:
“No more carve outs. No more loopholes. We’re thrilled to see growing momentum in Congress to defend American patients struggling to afford their medication by ending the perverse incentives that allow PBMs to jack up drug prices while raking in obscene profits,” said Sara Sirota, Policy Analyst at Economic Liberties. “Senators Wyden and Crapo’s framework offers an important analysis of our PBM crisis, and we encourage them to support Senator Hawley’s proposal to remove the misguided exemption granted to PBMs from the Anti-Kickback statute decades ago. We also urge policymakers to outlaw PBM pharmacy ownership, a blatant conflict of interest that’s creating pharmacy deserts across the country.”
“It is also crucial that Congress does not stop at PBMs,” Sirota added. “As highlighted during a recent Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, patients and their healthcare providers are suffering from outrageous shortages of basic medications. Lawmakers must extend their scrutiny to the major group purchasing organizations and wholesalers that are also using their gatekeeping leverage to distort drug markets.”
Policy recommendations for removing anti-kickback exemptions for pharmaceutical and medical supply middlemen are detailed in Economic Liberties’ 2023 Antimonopoly Policy Agenda. To learn more about pharmacy benefit managers, read Economic Liberties “The Pharmacy Benefit Mafia” or watch “How PBMs Impact Drug Prices, Communities, and Patients,” a 2022 event featuring Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Congressman Buddy Carter (GA-01), and the National Community Pharmacists Association. Also, read Economic Liberties and allies’ letter to the FTC in November requesting an investigation into GPOs.
Learn more about Economic Liberties here.
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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.