Associated Press
LANSING, Mich. (AP) A Republican legislative leader and other lawmakers on Wednesday unveiled bipartisan measures they said are designed to lower prescription drug prices, bring parity in insurance coverage of chemotherapy and improve the quality of health care.
The sweeping 15-bill package would, among other things, regulate pharmacy benefit managers that run prescription drug coverage for insurers and employers, and ban the “middlemen” PBMs from profiting by charging a health plan and their enrollees more than what is paid to the dispensing pharmacy. Three managers dominate the U.S. market: CVS Health’s Caremark business, UnitedHealth’s OptumRx and Cigna’s recently acquired Express Scripts.
Michigan lawmakers unveil bills to curb health care costs
By DAVID EGGERTFebruary 25, 2021 GMT
LANSING, Mich. (AP) A Republican legislative leader and other lawmakers on Wednesday unveiled bipartisan measures they said are designed to lower prescription drug prices, bring parity in insurance coverage of chemotherapy and improve the quality of health care.
The sweeping 15-bill package would, among other things, regulate pharmacy benefit managers that run prescription drug coverage for insurers and employers, and ban the “middlemen” PBMs from profiting by charging a health plan and their enrollees more than what is paid to the dispensing pharmacy. Three managers dominate the U.S. market: CVS Health’s Caremark business, UnitedHealth’s OptumRx and Cigna’s recently acquired Express Scripts.
It’s an insult to blow smoke in someone’s face. That’s what Big Tobacco and its enablers in the Legislature are doing to Montanans right now, and we should all be