Trenton, October 24, 2024 ― Chrissy Buteas, President and Chief Executive Officer of the HealthCare Institute of New Jersey, released the following statement concerning Assembly Bill A-4953, the Patient and Provider Protection Act:
“The House Energy and Commerce Committee, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have all recently outlined pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) abuses that harm patients; the FTC has even filed suit against the three largest PBMs.
PBMs artificially inflate drug prices because they profit when patients pay more for their prescriptions. In fact, less than half of the money spent on prescription medicines goes to the company that discovered and manufactured that medicine – the majority of money spent on prescriptions goes to PBMs and middlemen in the system who profit off of patients.
HINJ has long advocated for greater transparency in the PBM marketplace, reforms to the PBM system, and a delinking of PBM profits from drug prices – a flat fee-for-service would decrease patient costs and expand patient access.
We look forward to working with the bill’s sponsors to stop PBM abuses and lower costs for patients.”