In his Guest Observer earlier this month (Congress Considering Risky Changes to Federal Employees’ Health Benefits), Mark Merritt of the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association attempted to paint the Prescription Drug Integrity, Transparency and Cost Savings Act as an overreaching regulation that would simply burden the pharmacy benefit managers that administer drug coverage for federal employees, diminishing competition and leading to higher costs.
This could not be further from the truth. The bill simply imposes reasonable disclosure requirements so the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program can better monitor and reduce its prescription drug spending. Many public and private plan sponsors already require these disclosures from the PBMs they use. Transparency is critical to making markets work, and it is not surprising that competitors do not like transparency. While transparency may be an annoyance for the PBMs, it will enhance the federal government’s ability to hold them accountable and reduce waste in prescription drug spending.
The above excerpt was originally published in Roll Call.
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