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WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, yesterday participated in a hearing titled “Bringing Transparency and Accountability to Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBM),” which addressed how the Pharmacy Benefit Manager Transparency Act will bring transparency into PBM business practices and prohibit unfair or deceptive PBM conduct that drives up costs for consumers.
Senator Capito is a co-sponsor of the Pharmacy Benefit Manager Transparency Act, which aims to ban deceptive unfair pricing schemes, prohibit arbitrary claw backs of payments made to pharmacies, and require PBMs to report to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) how much money they make through spread pricing and pharmacy fees.
HIGHLIGHTS:
ON COSTS FROM DRUG MANUFACTURERS TO PATIENTS: “I guarantee you're looking at a flowchart – If we looked at it – if we actually had that in front of us, it would be more difficult to read than a flowchart from the Corps of Engineers. Because it would be ‘if this- that, if this- that’ and before you know it, total confusion, which is what I think we have in terms of the lack of transparency with PBMs.”
ON WHERE THE FRUSTRATION COMES FROM: “You know, it's just, I think it is the confusion masks where the money's going. And I think in the end, the intent is to get it to that person at the counter.”
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