This year, our federal leadership has the opportunity to enact real change for patients and take a hard look at the deception happening daily in our health care system. We need to also see national limits on spread pricing to mitigate price gouging, and Congress should require that PBMs pass through 100% of rebates and administrative fees, and the American public needs transparency regarding PBM-owned pharmacies - when PBMs own their own specialty pharmacies, they operate unchecked. Over time, however, the prescription middlemen haven’t held up their end of the bargain - instead of passing savings along to employers and consumers, they have diverted the savings and pocketed the profits for themselves. Historically, many large employers have contracted with PBMs to negotiate greater savings on prescription drugs for their employees. Opponents of reasonable reforms have argued that the legislation would be bad for businesses - but as a member of one of the nation’s most business-friendly legislatures, I can tell you that the kind of PBM reform we passed in Florida will actually help businesses save money as they provide coverage for their employees. In recent months, congressional committees on both sides of the Capitol have prioritized the review of bills with the same overriding goal: making sure patients are the ones profiting - not PBMs. With many states working this year to rein in PBMs, there is finally a real push for Congress to enact meaningful reforms at the national level. As a sponsor of state-level legislation that garnered unanimous bipartisan support - a rarity in these divided times - I believe the prospect of national reform is not only well within reach, but absolutely necessary. This potentially landmark step in the federal debate was, at least in part, propelled by states like Florida that have prioritized reform over the last year.
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