PBM Accountability Project Statement on PBM Lobbying Efforts to Avert Accountability

The PBM industry’s lobbying arm is reportedly working to avoid new federal regulations, suggesting instead that PBMs police themselves. As Bloomberg News reports, “The strategy PBMs are using is similar to one deployed by health insurers earlier this year, when they pledged to cut red tape for approvals.”

Mark Blum, managing director of the PBM Accountability Project, issued the following statement:

“This news is no surprise since the three largest PBMs in America, who set prices and manage more than 80% of all U.S. prescription drug claims, have merged as vertically integrated conglomerates with the three largest health insurance companies in America.

“For years, PBMs have operated with little transparency, responding to perverse incentives, and employing opaque practices that drive up prescription drug costs for hundreds of millions of Americans. No policymaker should be naïve enough to accept promises of voluntary self-policing by PBM mega-corporations that have long resisted oversight, fought reform, and exploited conflicts of interest to profiteer at the expense of their own clients.

“The urgent need for effective PBM reforms, enforceable regulation and real transparency is clear. Self-regulation is not a real solution for curbing the anti-competitive practices of vertically integrated PBM conglomerates. The PBM suggestion that they police themselves is a cruel joke, an insult from PBMs to millions of American families, taxpayers, businesses and community pharmacists who desperately need relief from staggering prescription drug costs and deceitful PBM business practices.

“Congress and the Administration must remain steadfast in advancing comprehensive PBM market reforms that will end PBM conflicts of interest and ensure the prescription drug affordability and PBM accountability Americans need. The American people deserve action, not empty promises from the corporations responsible for doing them so much harm. We urge policymakers to reject this latest and most cynical and self-serving of PBM proposals and deliver meaningful reforms that prioritize patients over profits.”