In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, CFIF today urged strong support for pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) reforms to be part of an end-of-year spending package.

Read the letter here (PDF) or below.

December 16, 2024

Dear Mr. Speaker and Leader McConnell,

On behalf of more than 300,000 supporters and activists across the nation, the Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) writes to urge strong support for pharmacy benefit manager (PBMs) reforms to be part of an end-of-year spending package. The reforms are needed now to increase competition and ensure patients, especially our nation’s seniors, realize cost savings on their prescription medications. 

Specifically, CFIF last week joined a coalition of nearly two-dozen conservative and free-market policy organizations in a letter urging support for the PBM transparency and accountability reforms that passed through the Senate Finance Committee – the Modernizing and Ensuring PBM Accountability (MEPA) Act (S. 2973) and the Mental Health, Lower-Cost Drug and Extenders Package (S. 3430). 

Such PBM reform inside programs like Medicare and Medicaid will not only “result in lower spending and cost savings for taxpayers,” the coalition noted in its letter, but “are needed to ensure that PBMs are not able to set the price of prescription drugs, dictate decisions made between doctors and patients, and steer patients to their preferred pharmacies.”

PBM reform enjoys widespread, bipartisan support. Indeed, an impressive seven Congressional committees passed some form of PBM reform during the current Congress. With a reported one in five seniors skipping or delaying taking their medications because of cost concerns, that critical work by the 118th Congress should not be squandered.  The time for common-sense PBM reform to increase competition, transparency and ensure patients realize cost savings is now. 

Thank you for your time and consideration on this important issue.

cc:  Members of Congress