More voices are sounding the alarm about the Department of Labor’s (DOL) harmful proposed pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) disclosure rule.
The bottom line: The proposed PBM rule will increase costs for patients, employers, and taxpayers, hurt competition in the PBM market, and is duplicative of reforms already enacted by Congress.
In a new American Thinker op-ed, Alex Rosado argues that the Trump administration and Congress already delivered “the most consequential Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) reform in a generation” through the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA). The law “expanded transparency reporting requirements for PBMs, gave employers real audit rights over compensation, and established new oversight and audit guidelines.”
Rosado warns that the DOL rule’s “parallel provisions risk undermining the competition and affordability gains the CAA strives to deliver.” And the costs are not insignificant:
“An accelerated DoL process means complying with this rule, on top of CAA requirements, will burden small- to mid-market PBMs, their clients, and unions. Complying with rules like these is not cheap. These groups will have to hire teams to collate the data and fill out all the forms. They have warned that the different data elements, certifications, and other obligations will force them to build multiple compliance infrastructures when they could focus on one… mid-market PBMs are scolding the DoL for freezing out new entrants and strengthening a climate where incumbents and large entities prosper.”
He urges DOL to get on the same page as the Trump Administration:
“PBM reform should champion employers, patients, and taxpayers. It still can, if the DoL rescinds its proposal, substantially realigns it to fit the CAA’s scope, or lets HHS run the show. In its current state, duplicative and extra regulation serves no greater purpose. It stifles the spirit of competition and choice that boosts small businesses and plans.”
A similar warning appears in a new piece by Ted Newson. He opens with a stark assessment: “Drug prices are high, and the Department of Labor is about to make things worse.”
Like Rosado, Newson points to the CAA’s significant transparency provisions and cautions that DOL’s rule “could instead strengthen the largest players, leaving consumers worse off.”
He underscores how this rule will negatively impact patients by making their medications more expensive:
“Overregulation makes compliance harder, leaving projects delayed, prohibitively expensive, or canceled. In the drug industry, ordinary Americans cannot simply do without their medications. They suffer if treatments become too expensive… Rules meant to make drug prices more competitive could instead strengthen the largest players, leaving consumers worse off.”
His warning is clear: DOL needs to reconsider a proposal that will reduce competition and drive up costs:
“Some transparency rules make sense. But designing them in a way that only large, established PBMs can easily survive is the wrong approach. It risks reducing competition and making prices higher, not lower, for sick Americans.”