AMCP Panel, GAO Report Sharpen Focus on State PBM Regulation

Although PBM-targeted legislation has stalled at the federal level, states are forging ahead in their efforts to rein in the highly scrutinized industry. In fact, the volume of state measures aimed at PBMs recently led the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to publish a review that zeroed in on five states that have taken a variety of approaches. Meanwhile, speakers at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) annual meeting told attendees about pending measures in states like California that industry stakeholders should be closely watching.

“We talk about states as the laboratories of democracy a lot,” Adam Colborn, director of government affairs at AMCP, said during an April 17 session at the conference, which was held in New Orleans. “There are a lot of experiments; I don’t know that they’re all successful experiments, but a lot of policies — particularly in the health care space — that are first enacted at the state level are then later implemented at the federal level.”