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Arkansas Drug Pricing Law Will Get Supreme Court Review

Bloomberg Law Review
January 10, 2020

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case that could decide the validity of at least 38 states’ laws regulating how companies like Express Scripts and CVS Health make money off prescription drugs.

The justices agreed Jan. 10 to take a case asking whether an Arkansas law regulating pharmacy benefit managers is preempted by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act. The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, a trade group representing PBMs, successfully challenged the law on ERISA preemption grounds in the Eighth Circuit.

The court’s decision to hear the case came at the urging of U.S. Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco, who argued that the Arkansas law doesn’t reference ERISA plans or have an impermissible connection with them.
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Since January 1:
  • Dr. Wayne Winegarden, Director of the Pacific Research Institute's Center for Medical Economics and Innovation, released a brief arguing PBM regulation or removal is the only access to truly lower U.S. drug prices and healthcare costs.
  • Georgia's Anti-Steering law took effect. With indications PBMs were already ignoring the law, Georgia pharmacist and pharmacy owner Nikki Bryant testified at the capitol, leading lawmakers to act quickly to  "reverse the corporate takeover of (Georgia) healthcare".
  • Florida Representative Jackie Toledo's Prescription Drug Cost Reduction bill (HB961)saw a companion bill filed in the Senate by Sen. Gayle Harrell.
  • More than 200 New York pharmacists and patient advocates gathered in Albany to protest Gov. Cuomo's veto of comprehensive PBM Regulation bill S6531. The rally took place prior to the Governor's State of the State Address. Advocates continue to work to revive the bill as the 2020 legislative session begins..
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Pharmacists United for Truth and Transparency (PUTT) is a non-profit advocacy organization founded by independent pharmacists and pharmacy owners devoted to exposing the truth about the anti-competitive tactics of pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) - drug benefits plan providers whose unregulated, secretive practices drive up prescription costs and annually waste hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. 

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