Bill to cut corporate middlemen out of Medicaid drug claims goes to Beshear

A bill to cut corporate middlemen out of Kentucky's $1.7 billion-a-year Medicaid prescription drug business won final passage in the Senate on Wednesday and now goes to Gov. Andy Beshear for his signature.

Senate Bill 50 takes aim at companies known as pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, that handle prescription drug claims for the five outside health insurance companies that manage most of the state Medicaid business.

They have come under increasing fire in recent years in Kentucky and other states by community pharmacists who say the PBMs have a practice of slashing payments and keeping profits at the expense of local drugstores — to the point in which some were threatened with extinction.

In introducing SB 50 Wednesday, the sponsor, Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, cited the COVID-19 pandemic as a reminder of the importance of local pharmacies, especially in rural communities and small towns.

Read more: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/ky-legislature/2020/03/18/bill-cut-corporate-middlemen-out-medicaid-drug-claims-gets-ok/2869268001/