(Washington, D.C.) — Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) President and CEO JC Scott issued the following statement on today’s vote in the Commerce Committee on “The Pharmacy Benefit Manager Transparency Act of 2022″ – legislation the industry deems anti-competitive and harmful to patients while providing the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) an egregious and unprecedented expansion of power, authority, and jurisdiction.
“Unfortunately, S. 4293 does nothing to reduce prescription drug costs. Instead, the legislation is designed to award pharmacies and drug manufacturers an increase to their bottom lines, rather than lowering prescription drug costs for consumers.
The bill severely hinders the ability of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to drive competition in the prescription drug marketplace and enables drug manufacturers to tacitly collude to raise prices even higher.
In addition, the bill grants an unprecedented expansion of power and regulatory authority to the FTC, giving the agency unchecked power to intervene in private business practices, effectively granting the FTC the ability to pick winners and losers among private businesses.
We look forward to working with Congress and the Administration on constructive policies that increase the competition needed to do what PBMs do best – reduce drug costs for every patient, and to hold drug manufacturers responsible for arbitrarily raising drug prices for patients.”
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PCMA is the national association representing America’s pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). PBMs administer prescription drug plans for more than 266 million Americans who have health insurance from a variety of sponsors including: commercial health plans, self-insured employer plans, union plans, Medicare Part D plans, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), state government employee plans, Medicaid plans, and others.
