Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
The Biden administration is taking a step to unfreeze enforcement of insurer price transparency rules on prescription drugs, as Congress makes its own moves on health price transparency.
Why it matters: The change, coming in a FAQ document posted by the Department of Labor, would enforce a regulation originally proposed under former President Trump. The new step won bipartisan praise from congressional backers of transparency legislation, but opposition from PBMs.
- House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Ranking Member Frank Pallone released a joint statement saying the move would "help empower patients and employers with accurate information about the cost of prescription drugs."
- They added they will "continue pushing to codify these critically important rules through our bipartisan Lower Costs, More Transparency Act."
The other side: PBMs, though, while stressing they do not oppose all transparency proposals, criticized the part of the rule that would require the disclosure of the discounts they get from drug companies.
- "This policy undermines PBMs' ability to effectively negotiate with drug companies to lower the cost patients and employers pay for drugs," the PCMA trade group said in a statement.
- "As numerous experts and government bodies have attested, public disclosure of drug company price concessions invites them to collude with their competitors and discount less deeply, driving drug costs even higher for patients and health plans," the group said.
