Transparency helps keep people, and businesses, honest. There is no better reason to pass this bill.

Universal single payer healthcare, cradle to grave!

Transparency is crucial in understanding where the healthcare system is broken and indicates where we go to course correct. It is nothing short of diabolical that life saving drugs like insulin, widely used and on the market for years, have had such a tremendous rate hike. Morbidity and mortality rates have risen among diabetics. We have to start setting pricing standards like other countries do. There is absolutely no reason, no excuse, for exorbitant rate hikes—medicines should be affordable fir everyone. Healthcare is not a commodity, fair and affordable healthcare is a right.

Yes, pharmacy rates/rebates should be transparent. I would even like to see what our neighbors in Mexico and Canada are paying for the same drugs. Sometimes, it's worth a trip. :) The pharmaceutical company's price hikes in this country are pure evil. It sickens me every time I hear that someone died because they could not afford their medications. Medicare For All would allow our government to negotiate those prices, and get rid of the excess profit margins. Healthcare is a right for all!

This is a step in the right direction.

PBMs are a MAJOR reason our system is so dysfunctional and expensive!!!

The pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) negotiations has been very shady and their deals with manufacturers put patients in the dark about if they’re paying the best possible price for their medications. Public reporting of PBMs would provide the government with way to make the PBMs more accountable for their business practices. This would be a start toward creating regulations that make prices the same everywhere & controls those prices, just like all other countries do.

Every measure to add sunshine and accountability to the shady drug pricing schemes is welcome. But, this is a tiny action in a very big cesspool. We need comprehensive review of drug and healthcare service pricing in this country. A pharmacy pricing bill should be grounded in what is in THE PATIENT'S interest and include: 1) Authorize all Federal payers to have what the VA has: the ability to control it's formulary and negotiate prices directly. 2) Regulate (as in Insurance commissions) to stop allowing the unreasonable pumping of prices of otherwise cheap off patent drugs so they can be used to sell rights between corporate entities. 3) Prohibit contracts between pharma companies that pays a potential competitor NOT to produce in order to maintain monopoly status. 4) Prevent public extortion by prohibiting pricing based on the lethality or morbidity of the consequence if it were not used. i.e. 5) Regulate: (as an insurance commissioner does) by requiring documentation that justifies the extraordinary cost of newer drugs based on overall research and production costs incurred, given market volume expected. A drug that costs 50-100,000.00 per dose. IN SUM: Stop saying we can reform healthcare systems without reforming and lowering drug pricing. Medicare will be broke in 2023.

The facts are that the price of staying healthy in this country is outrageous. But that's not because there isn't any competition. There are a few things wrong with the system. Pharmaceutical costs are one. Tests and procedures are the other. Now, BIG pharma pumps Millions if not Billions into the CRIMINALS we elect in Washington. So when votes come up to try and get medical costs under control, be it medicine, tests or actual care, the Criminals we elect, water down the legislation because of the CASH they receive from the medical "industry" lobbyists. The BOUGHT and PAID FOR POLITICIANS simply do the bidding of their masters in the medical "industry." OH and YES! When did health care become an "industry?" When Lyndon Johnson started handing out MEDICAID CARDS like they were "Library cards" to the slackers on welfare. TRILLIONS of dollars in taxpayer money went to the "Health Care Industry" for everything from Flu Shots to Abortion procedures. Doctors bilk Medicaid and Medicare for big cash for a 20 minute office visit. Go to a hospital? EVERY ASPECT of your care is run by PRIVATE CONTRACTORS who work inside the Hospital. You get up to 10 DIFFERENT BILLS for everything from the X-ray technician to the person who hands you an Aspirin. Then the cost of "Health Insurance" and co-pays continue to rise. the FALSEHOOD that was "OBAMACARE" did little to get people insured. It DID LESS to get the cost of health care under control. In fact, if OBAMACARE DID ANYTHING? IT INFLATED THE COST OF THE ACTUAL CARE BY AT LEAST %35! As greed driven for profit Hospitals and Health Care companies sprung up like WEEDS to get in on the FEEDING FRENZY that OBAMACARE offered. So to with the "Health Insurance Providers." Where there were about 5 major Health Insurance Companies, there are now about 25. ALL of whom are vying for a piece of the pie. Then finally, we have the "Mal Practice" insurance Doctors and Hospitals are forced to carry. The problem here is that the FILTHY AMBULANCE CHASING LAWYERS are actually advertising on TV 100 times a day to get you to call in for your shot at free cash. OH, Doctor implanted a surgical mesh to close a hernia and it didn't work because the patient put on 100 POUNDS and it ripped open? SUE THE DOCTOR, THE HOSPITAL and MANUFACTURER for the patient eating FAST FOOD 5 times a day. ALL of this contributes to the rising cost of health care and health insurance.

You bet. Their claims about the difficulties of their business needs to be exposed.

How is it we can agree on Freaking Pharmacy and not agree on Donald Trump being an active foreign agent??

Normally, I am a libertarian, but on this issue, PBMs are overpricing Americans and should be exposed.

seems helpful to regular ppl. takes power away from corporations etc.

Good to know why you’re paying full price for a drug even though it’s generic.

keep the sobs honest.

It is important to see see how money drives the insurance and drug industry. I have worked for third party insurance companies for 30 years, I know this is not a healthy or ethical way to run our healthcare systems.

0 My Public Comment ··· Today at 10:54 PM PBMs are robbing Americans, with help from Pharma and Insurers, by rigging the system so that they receive outrageous secret legalized kickbacks. This practice is intentionally opaque and complex to sustain it. What other industry has middlemen pocketing money in the form of kickbacks? How did we function before PBMs - ExpressScripts, CVSCaremark, and OptumRX - entered as superfluous middlemen? I’m old enough to remember when patients paid a higher copay or portion for more expensive branded drugs and lower for generics. That’s a free (or closer to free) market system whereby the consumer has skin in the game. It allows for competition and drives prices down. Generics were predictably less costly. Drug prices were actually reasonable. The past 5+ years have proven to be disastrous. PBMs incentivize Pharma to INCREASE their list price, competing for top tier placement on insurance formularies, because PBM kickbacks are based on the list price- the higher the list price the more these unnecessary middlemen pocket. Our legislators must act. Delayed, partial transparency may be a token step forward I’m afraid and simply kick the can down the road, but transparency is needed. This is no longer under the radar. Prescribing physicians know. Patients know. Legislators know. I thank Senator John Cornyn and others for pushing for transparency and an end to this malarkey.