EXCLUSIVE: A conservative tax group is heating up some Senate Republicans with a multimillion-dollar campaign targeting their support for reforming a key part of the drug pricing system, ahead of an expected vote on the health care package this month.
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is committed to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., along with Republican senators Katie Britt of Alabama, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Mike Braun of Indiana and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, Fox News Digital has learned, for speaking out against the Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs).
“The Bernie Sanders-led effort to expand government control of our health care system should be anathema to every conservative American and fiscal in Congress,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz. “CCAGW has fought for decades to prevent a government takeover of the health care system and is launching its latest multifaceted effort to prevent the adoption of any legislation that would move the country closer to socialized medicine.”
The fiscal watchdog campaign will consist of a combination of grassroots activism, online messaging and other forms of media outreach.
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WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 16: Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) as Samuel Altman, CEO of OpenAI, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law on May 16, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
PBMs have come under bipartisan scrutiny recently as lawmakers face more pressure to help curb rising prices for prescription drugs and other drugs. PBMs want CVS Caremark act as a middleman between pharmaceutical manufacturers and insurance companies to negotiate drug costs for millions of Americans.
There is little public insight into their skills or standards. This prompted Democrats like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, a public health care advocate and chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has sought to impose more regulatory constraints on the work of PBMs.
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CVS Caremark, owned by the same company as CVS Pharmacy, is one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers in the country (Google Map)
But some conservative groups like CCAGW believe that restricting the work of PBMs would place an undue burden on the millions of patients who rely on their services, as well as on US taxpayers who have to pay for federal government involvement. CCAGW is the lobbying arm of the nonprofit Citizens Against Government Waste, which has received funds from groups such as the Bradley Foundation, ExxonMobil and Johnson & Johnson in recent years, the charity’s transparency reports show.
A 30-second ad shared on Fox News Digital shows the group urging voters to stop their GOP senators from supporting PBM reform by directly linking them to Sanders.
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“Bernie Sanders is here again, this time with a radical plan to increase government control of your pharmacy benefits. Worse, some Republicans support it,” said a voiceover.
The group focused on the PBM reform push heavily on Sen. Bernie Sanders (The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste)
“Sanders’ socialist plan isn’t just an attack on your health benefits. It’s his next step toward government-run health care, destroying your pharmacy benefits, increasing drug costs and threatening of private health insurance. Call [Alabama Republican Sen.] Katie Britt, tell her to oppose Bernie’s radical health care.”
Sanders’ bill would impose price transparency measures on PBMs as well as ban tactics he says unfairly raise drug prices. PBM supporters say this would prevent them from negotiating the kinds of discounts these middlemen currently get.
The legislation is part of a broader health package expected to be taken up by the Senate this month.
It pressures GOP lawmakers who support PBM reform by tying them to Sanders (The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste)
PBM reform as a whole has bipartisan support. Hawley spoke out against PBMs earlier this year when legislation to lower drug prices was introduced.
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“Our prescription drug market is rigged in favor of Big Pharma and Big Insurance and patients are paying the price. Americans are footing the bill for the most expensive prescription drug prices in the world—all while the middlemen do the talking in backroom deals to extract financial kickbacks that drive prices higher and discourage cheaper alternatives,” he said in April.
Meanwhile, Tuberville wrote in a May 2021 op-ed in the Washington Times, “PBMs claim to help patients by negotiating lower prices from drug manufacturers. But the truth is PBMs rarely, if ever, pass those savings on to patients.”
