NEW OPINION: Senators Should Stand Up to Big Pharma

I recently wrote an opinion piece that was placed in the Standard Examiner and the Daily Herald about the Pharmacy Benefit Manager Reform Act (S. 1339) sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders. The bill undermines PBMs, and it will interfere with private contracts made with them by imposing transparency and pricing requirements.

Since this was placed in a Utah outlet, I needed to add a Utah spin on it, hence I added that Sen. Mitt Romney opposed the measure. There are many times I have disagreed with Sen. Romney, but this is one time when he is right. Even Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. Tommy Tuberville opposed it.

I am someone who is all for transparency, but it becomes a problem when government decides to impose those requirements on private entities. It is anti-competitive, and it ends up increasing costs rather than decreasing them, and it harms consumers.

“Basically, PBMs act as a check and balance — like in our system of government — on pharmaceutical companies, obtaining price discounts for the consumer in the form of rebates.

Sanders’ bill would gut their ability to negotiate, under the mistaken assumption that they are the “bad guy,” and it sailed through the Senate health committee by a terrifying 18-3 vote.”

I also explained how Sen. Sanders is hypocritical to let Big Pharma groups support the bill while he likes to “wag” his finger at them during campaign season.

You may ask why I wrote an opinion piece related to healthcare. I mostly write about education and free-markets. Well, this is a free-market issue, and the government is interfering with it.

As I wrote, “Now, pharmaceutical companies are not inherently evil. We need them to provide pharmaceutical drugs to us. But we know it is the nature of any organization with unrestricted power to abuse that power — so PBMs have a free-market incentive to push back on behalf of patients. Yes, they make money in the process, but they save us more.”