Prescription drug affordability remains a pressing issue across the United States, and Arizona is no exception. Polling has shown that 80% of Arizona voters are concerned about prescription drug prices, and 85% blame the prescription drug companies for rising drug prices. If one pays attention to Big Pharma’s campaign to eliminate Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), the blame is completely justified.
By negotiating bulk rate pricing, PBMs achieve price savings that individuals can’t. That is why my business’s health plan voluntarily uses PBMs they work. Studies show that PBMs have made a significant impact, helping knock more than $650 billion off the cost of prescriptions between 2015 and 2023.
But when you take a large chunk of money away from Big Pharma, they hit back with force.
Proposed legislation in both the House and Senate would all but eliminate PBMs and their ability to deliver lower prices to their customers and sadly, some of Arizona’s elected representatives are contributing to the problem by doing Big Pharma’s bidding, often while bashing the industry at the same time!
Senator Krysten Sinema, I-Ariz., has always been a pharmaceutical industry favorite . Throughout her career, she has been rewarded handsomely for her advocacy with hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. Now that she is retiring, one of her possible replacements is picking up the Big Pharma ball and running with it.
Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., the Democrat seeking to replace Sinema in the Senate, has become an expert and has rhetorically criticized prescription drug companies but then introduced legislation to empower the industry to raise prices further.
Gallego recently introduced three bills in Congress that would functionally eliminate PBMs by subjecting them to an onerous regulatory scheme that would benefit drug companies. All the cost savings achieved from PBMs negotiating bulk discounts would evaporate overnight right out of consumers' pockets and into Big Pharma's pockets. The industry is so invested that it is spending millions lobbying and paying for advertisements demanding PBMs be eliminated.
Rep. Gallego is trying to hide his anti-consumer policies behind a veneer of cynicism fit for a veteran Washington, D.C. insider. Concurrent with his anti-PBM onslaught, he introduced legislation that would penalize Big Pharma should yearly price increases on prescription medication exceed the rate of inflation. This is the height of D.C. double-dealing. With out-of-control federal spending and yearly deficits of nearly $2 trillion, as far as the eye can see, inflation will continue to skyrocket, thus negating the proposed penalties on Big Pharma.
The pharmaceuticals have been watching Gallego and are clearly pleased with what they see. Since he first ran for Congress, Big Pharma has showered him with tens of thousands of campaign cash and if he continues to do their bidding, they will continue to reward them.
When push comes to shove, the same politician who calls drug prices a form of “ price gouging ” is doing everything he can to empower the gougers.
Voters shouldn’t be fooled. They should look beyond the headlines and pithy quotations to the fine print of these health care proposals. Eliminating PBMs would cost Arizona seniors and consumers thousands of dollars, making accessing critical life-saving drugs even more challenging to come by, no matter what some wolf in sheep’s clothing Big Pharma “opponents” may say.
William A. Gaspar is a board certified doctor of internal medicine and the medical director and co-owner of B HIve IV Wellness Clinic in Chandler.
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