(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Congress: Don’t Give Drug Companies More Control [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-12 The cost of drugs in America today appears to know no bounds. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, over 1,200 drug products’ price increases exceeded the country’s 8.5 percent inflation rate from July 2021 to July 2022. Their average price increase was nearly 32 percent, while some drugs’ cost increased by a staggering $20,000 (500 percent). Lawmakers should find this unacceptable and explore every viable avenue to address the healthcare affordability crisis. Unfortunately, however, rather than address this problem, a couple of members of Congress are considering taking action that would make it even worse. In a committee hearing this week, these members are taking aim at the only organizations stopping drug companies from inflating the cost of our prescriptions even more. These groups in question, Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), work to get the best deals possible in drug pricing negotiations. Think of PBMs as unions for healthcare buyers. Recognizing that some drug companies have too much market share and too much ability to raise their costs, healthcare buyers began aggregating their shared needs and concerns into one powerful voice — PBMs, third-party drug program administrators — to negotiate with the few problem drug companies. Like unions are for workers, PBMs are tremendously effective for healthcare payers and patients, saving them over $1,000 per person a year. And that appears to be precisely why some drug companies don’t like them. While these manufacturers don’t have many restraints on their pricing right now, they seem dead set on having none at all, even though large swaths of the country are already begging for basic treatment and cost relief. Getting rid of the PBMs represents the best chance they have to make this dream a reality. Their arguments against PBMs center on their size, but again, they are only big because healthcare consumers need an advocate that’s big enough to negotiate with the biggest drug companies. Smaller, in this case, wouldn’t mean better, it would mean less leverage for Main Street. These facts haven’t stopped some stopped some interest groups from calling PBMs our enemy, not our friend. The National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) is one of them. Labeling PBMs as middlemen, it claims they have gotten rich at the expense of health care plan sponsors and consumers. The NCPA’s receipt of over $100,000 annually from America’s three biggest drug wholesalers, which naturally oppose the downward pressure PBMs impose on drug prices, seems to explain why the group is making this unfair characterization. These donations seem to indicate that the NCPA is far from a neutral third-party, so its criticisms of PBMs shouldn’t be treated as such. Time will tell if our members of Congress make the right decision, but with drug prices already projected to increase even more in 2023, we desperately need them to speak truth to power and do the right thing for America’s healthcare future. That process should start with standing up for PBMs — one of the only pro-consumer allies consumers can count on to provide drug pricing relief today — and standing against the drug companies that don’t have our interests at heart. Mike Payan is the co-founder of Sussex Health & Environmental Network and the Vice Chair for the Sussex County Democratic Party. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/12/2152609/-Congress-Don-t-Give-Drug-Companies-More-Control Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/