The National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) today praised a report on pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) middlemen issued by House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY). The report describes the Committee’s “findings that PBMs inflate prescription drug costs and interfere with patient care for their own financial benefit.”
The report was issued on the day of a high-profile Committee hearing on PBM tactics. The hearing and the report are part of the Committee’s ongoing investigation of PBMs.
The report states:
- “PBM practices not only impact patients’ pocketbooks, but also their health.”
- “[PBMs’] anticompetitive practices make it difficult for unaffiliated chain and independent community pharmacies to survive.”
- “The Committee’s findings indicate that the present role of PBMs in prescription drug markets is failing and requires change. Congress and states must implement legislative reforms to increase the transparency of the PBM market and ensure patients are placed at the center of our health care system, rather than PBMs’ profits.”
NACDS President and CEO Steven C. Anderson said: “The U.S. Congress needs absolutely no further evidence to proceed with the PBM reforms in Medicare, Medicaid, and the commercial markets that now have bipartisan consensus on both sides of the Capitol and across the committees of jurisdiction. The House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s report further documents and details the appalling pharmaceutical benefit manipulation by the PBM middlemen. The reforms that have advanced in the 118th Congress would go a long way toward confronting the PBM tactics that harm Americans, pharmacies, taxpayers, employers, and communities. These reforms simply must be enacted this year.”
