St. Paul, MN – Today, Wednesday, March 19, the Minnesota House of Representatives Health Committee heard three bills, authored by Rep. Steve Elkins (DFL - Bloomington), which would reduce the cost of prescription drugs. The bills include HF 1652 which would prevent health plans from kicking consumers off their meds in the middle of the year, HF 1076 requiring health plans to cover the lowest cost drugs, and HF 1075 which would require health plans to use the kickbacks they receive from drug companies to reduce the price of prescriptions. This legislation takes a targeted approach to lowering drug prices, pinpointing unintended consequences of drug manufacturer rebates which have taken decades to materialize, creating higher costs for the sickest Minnesotans.
“For too long, drug manufacturers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) and health plans have taken advantage of flaws in federal drug policy to squeeze consumers for ever increasing amounts of profit,” said Rep. Elkins. “I’ve worked on this legislation for years and it is specifically crafted to target the strategies keeping cheap and affordable drugs out of the hands of Minnesotans.”
HF 1652 would prohibit a health plan from forcing patients to switch drugs in the middle of the year because they’re now getting a bigger rebate from the manufacturer of a competitive drug. If a patient and a doctor find a drug that works, they should be allowed to stick with that drug for the rest of the plan year.
HF 1075 says that health plans and PBMs must use the rebates that they received when patients bought their drug to buy down their price at the pharmacy counter in the form of a “Point of Sale Rebate.” This will ensure these rebates are being used to make expensive life saving drugs more affordable to the patients who need them.
HF 1076 is an innovative approach not yet adopted by any other state. It requires PBMs and health plans to include the low-price drugs in their formularies and construct their formularies so that the drugs with the lowest prices for the patient (rather than the drug generating the biggest kick-backs to the insurance company) receive the best placement in their formularies. The goal of this legislation is to redirect competition away from rebates towards lower prices.
Each bill was laid over. Video of the committee can be found on the House Information’s Youtube Channel.
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