(The Center Square) – The state House OK’d a bill Friday that, if passed, will reign in pharmacy benefit managers, which impact prescription pricing and put pressure on independent drug stores across Pennsylvania.
“We need to create a level playing field for our community pharmacies so that they can compete fairly with the big guys. We’re taking on corporate greed, and I believe we will win,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jessica Benham, D-Carrick.
As it stands, “the big three” – Caremark, Express Scripts and Optum – control over 90% of the prescriptions filled in the nation. They use vertical integration structures to profit from every level of the patient process, from clinic to prescription.
The bill grants oversight into the pharmacy benefit manager, or PBM, process, requiring them to report the rebates and payments they receive from drug manufacturers and how they were disbursed. It will ban PBM practices like patient steering, spread pricing and retroactively recouping money paid to pharmacies.