Blue Shield of Cal­i­for­nia breaks off from phar­ma­cy ben­e­fit man­ag­er in new deal with Ama­zon and Mark Cuban

Non­prof­it health in­sur­er Blue Shield of Cal­i­for­nia is break­ing away from its phar­ma­cy ben­e­fit man­ag­er CVS Care­mark and launch­ing a new mod­el that aims to in­crease trans­paren­cy around pre­scrip­tion drug costs, it an­nounced on Thurs­day.

The mod­el fol­lows years of talks around low­er­ing drug prices for pa­tients, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Cal­i­for­nia, one of the first states to pass pre­scrip­tion drug pric­ing trans­paren­cy leg­is­la­tion. Blue Shield’s team de­vised a plan on a white­board to low­er its drug spend­ing around the end of 2019 and put out its of­fi­cial pro­pos­al in 2022.

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