California May Regulate and Restrict Pharmaceutical Brokers

(By Don Thompson for KFF Health News)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom will soon decide whether the most populous U.S. state will join 25 others in regulating the middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, whom many policymakers blame for the soaring cost of prescription drugs

PBMs have been under fire for years for alleged profiteering and anticompetitive conduct, but efforts to regulate the industry at the federal level have stalled in Congress.

The three largest PBMs are owned by insurers and retail pharmacy chains, and about 80% of prescription drug sales in the United States are controlled by them: OptumRx, owned by UnitedHealth Group; CVS Caremark, owned by CVS Health, which also owns the insurer Aetna; and Express Scripts, owned by The Cigna Group. Continue reading here…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health polity news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

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