Washington, D.C. — Ahead of the U.S. Senate’s consideration of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)—which includes positive amendments coming from Sen. Warren to increase transparency and fight graft in PBMs’ dealings with TRICARE, as well as problematic amendments from Sen. Cornyn that will enable gouging by contractors—following its passage through the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“Senator Warren has introduced strong, necessary amendments to the NDAA to prevent pharmacy benefit managers from self-dealing at the expense of taxpayers, veterans and their families, and independent pharmacists,” said Morgan Harper, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project. “In their dealings with TRICARE, PBMs will have to submit to transparency standards; offer the lowest-price drugs instead of the most profitable; pass through rebates from drug manufacturers; and contract with independent pharmacies and pay them the same as they pay affiliate pharmacies. These amendments strike right at the heart of PBMs’ abusive practices, and erect strict guardrails to protect against them in the TRICARE market.”

“While Sen. Warrens amendments help root out the wasteful corporate extraction that is pervasive in the defense sector, Sen. Cornyn’s two amendments do the opposite,” added Harper. “These dangerous additions will increase prices on existing fixed-price shipbuilding contracts, and force the government to pay higher prices to contractors today for highly-speculative future cost savings. Both are textbook examples of the plunder of taxpayer dollars that characterizes consolidated contractors, and we urge the House to strike them down.”

In May, Economic Liberties outlined several proposals to reintroduce competition and crack down on corporate extraction across the defense industrial base, as well as in markets for services offered to servicemembers and veterans. Some proposals include: closing a loophole to ensure transparent pricing disclosure for sole-sourced contracts; limiting “progress payment” government financing to contractors to incentivize better performance; lowering the threshold at which contractors must disclose estimated costs; reinstating the “paid cost rule” to require contractors to actually pay subcontractors in cash before requesting government reimbursement; creating a “right to repair” for weapons systems; restoring TRICARE coverage for independent pharmacies; and instituting a Section 230 exemption to allow social media companies to be held responsible when they fail to take action against scams targeting service members and veterans.

In June, the House passed a version of the NDAA including amendments from Rep. Gluensenkamp-Perez and Rep. Doggett that advanced Right-to-Repair and procurement accountability.

Read “Antimonopoly Proposals for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)” to learn more. 

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.