CAPD Statement on the Administration’s Forthcoming Rx Rebates Proposal
The Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs (CAPD), a diverse group of employers, labor unions, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), health plans, and state employees and retirees, today issued the following statement in response to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposal pending at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) titled “Removal Of Safe Harbor Protection for Rebates to Plans or PBMs Involving Prescription Pharmaceuticals and Creation of New Safe Harbor Protection:”
“If a proposed rulemaking by HHS takes steps to ban rebates, it will do nothing to ease the burden of high drug prices on American families, and could cause widespread disruption and increase costs for families, seniors, and governments. Rebates are an important tool used to lower prices and premiums for patients and bring enormous value to the health care system. As long as the sky is the limit for drug company pricing practices, PBM negotiation on behalf of consumers and employer, union, health plan, and state and federal government customers is the only check on high drug prices for patients. Drug manufacturers alone set their list prices and nothing is stopping them from lowering prices today.”