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The Danger of PDABs
Patients and their trusted health care providers should always have full control over treatment decisions – but insurance companies, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), and third-party vendors frequently interfere. These obstacles include a burgeoning threat in states around the country: the emergence of Prescription Drug Affordability Boards (PDABs).
PDAB Conflicts and Consequences
While the term “affordability” might initially sound
promising, these state-run drug boards do not actually make medications affordable for the people who need them most: patients. Out-of-pocket costs and access to treatment are top priorities for patients, but the unelected political appointees running PDABs have free rein to set price controls on life-saving medicines. Physicians have reported concern that putting the power in political appointees’ hands could impact patient care as states interfere with patients’ ability to make personal treatment decisions with their health care professionals. Pharmacists have already told the drug boards that price controls could cause them to stop supplying the targeted drugs, leaving patients without access to the medicines they depend on to live.
Failed Experiment
PDABs do not ensure patients will pay less for medicines because they fail to address the role that insurance companies and their vertically integrated PBMs play in the healthcare system. These middlemen determine what patients pay out-of-pocket and health plans have admitted that UPLs would mostly impact patients by disrupting access to their medications and increasing out-of-pocket costs.
Colorado’s Harmful Limits
Through the UPL process, Colorado’s political appointees have not addressed how third-party interference from insurance companies and PBMs have directly distorted the drug’s price for patients, nor have they truly valued patients’ perspectives. Many patients and their caregivers have expressed fears about price limits further hindering accessibility and affordability, yet PDABs typically only consider feedback from a select few, limiting direct public commentary that may run counter to their policies.
LMDD Action Network Opposes PDABs.
We believe decision makers must do what's right. Political appointees should not have a say in the treatments patients and their doctors decide are best.
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