House, Senate committees mark up PBM bills as momentum for reform mounts
Lawmakers have spent the spring and summer chipping away at reforms to pharmacy benefit managers — the middlemen entities that insurance companies hire to negotiate drug prices with pharma companies — and several key pieces of bipartisan legislation are making their way through Congress this week.
The House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee marked up bills on Wednesday that would require more transparency from PBMs on drug pricing as part of an effort to hold the entities accountable and lower overall drug costs for patients. The PBM lobbying group said it disagrees with lawmakers that the legislation would reduce costs for patients and could instead lead to cuts in pharmacy benefits.
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