The EACH/PIC Coalition submitted a letter to the Louisiana House and Governmental Affairs Committee urging opposition to SB 401, which would create a Prescription Drug Affordability Board with the goal of setting upper payment limits in Louisiana.
The letter stated:
“EACH/PIC has been actively working with PDABs in multiple states and has seen firsthand the limitations of the PDAB model. Based on our experience, we believe PDABs are ineffective in identifying and solving the actual barriers patients face when attempting to access high-cost medications. Furthermore, PDABs cost states millions of dollars per year to operate and have yet to show any savings to the state or patients. In fact, failure to achieve savings was a direct reason for the full repeal of the New Hampshire PDAB in 2025.”
“Contrary to the claims of PDAB supporters, setting a UPL for a drug does not directly lower patient OOP costs and have little impact on overall patient costs. In reality, UPLs can endanger patient accessibility and limit appropriate reimbursement for the physicians and pharmacists.”
“EACH/PIC shares in your goal of lowering drug costs for patients and applauds the legislature for being out-front on reforms that actually benefit patients, such as banning copay accumulator/diversion programs and reforming many anti-competitive pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) practices.”
“We urge committee members to continue their focus on these non-UPL reforms and strongly support legislation (S.B.387 and H.B. 938) that ‘delinks’ PBM compensation from the price of the drug. This reform (already enacted in Colorado and by Congress for Medicare Part D) is estimated to save up to 15 percent in annual net drug spending if implemented nationwide, simply by removing the perverse incentive for PBMs to cover the highest-cost drugs for which they can extract the highest drug rebates.”