Mike Collins: “I appreciate the gentleman being here. I know there are others from across the aisle that are joining us in this fight…”

“I appreciate the gentleman being here. I know there are others from across the aisle that are joining us in this fight, and we are looking forward to continuing. Mr. Speaker, I am just going to highlight a few things as we go through, and we are going to move through some of our speakers. Mr. Speaker, I want to highlight something that pharmacy benefit managers, PBMs, for those watching, may not know about, and they don't want you to know about it, and it is called spread pricing. Really, what happens there is PBMs have the maximum allowable cost, which is what Mr. Loebsack was just talking about, that determine the maximum amount a pharmacy will be reimbursed for certain generic drugs. However, the PBMs' reimbursement price determinations are hidden. There is no transparency in the process. That is the bill that we are going to be putting out. PBMs commonly manipulate the pricing by something called spread pricing. PBMs charge employers a higher price for drugs than necessary, and reimburse pharmacies at the MAC, or the maximum allowable cost, which is typically lower. Spread pricing allows PBMs to skim money from the difference between the high rate they charge for a prescription and the low rate they reimburse pharmacies. Spread pricing is artificially raising the acquisition cost of pharmacy drugs by overcharging at the expense of retail pharmacies, consumers, and health plans. And that is probably one of the better things they do. This gets worse.…”