In Review: After the swearing-in of the new House member last Tuesday due to the special election in District 40B, the House is now back to a 67 – 67 tie, and the bipartisan power-sharing agreement is in full effect. This includes, that every committee has a co-chair and co-vice chair, and the co-chairs alternate days of presiding over their relevant committees. The House Health and Finance Policy Committee heard HF 1652 (Prohibiting Certain Formulary Changes During the Plan Year) and HF 1075 (point-of-sale rebates) on March 19. PCMA and Prime Therapeutics both testified in opposition to the bills. Both bills were laid over for further consideration in the omnibus bill. While HF 1076  (formulary) was also scheduled to be heard, the Committee chair skipped over the bill and due to time constraints, never came back to it nor mentioned if it would be heard at a later time.

Up Next: We are still hearing from the pharmacists that the big PBM bill is coming and have been requesting that language be shared with us, but we have not seen anything thus far. April 4 at 5:00 P.M. is the self-imposed first and second committee deadlines for the 2025 legislative session. The following bills are scheduled to be heard in the Senate Health and Human Services Committee on March 25: SF 1806 (Prohibiting Certain Formulary Changes During the Plan Year), SF 1876  (formulary), and SF 1877 (point-of-sale rebates). PCMA plans to testify and submit written testimony. The following priority bills were introduced: SF 2607 / HF 2482 (modify prior authorizations), HF 2500 (Algorithm and AI Use Prohibited During Health Insurance Prior Authorization), and SF 2669 / HF 2435 (Governor’s Omnibus Bill Language for HHS.)

If you have any questions, please contact Michelle Mack at mmack@pcmanet.org.