The EACH/PIC Coalition submitted a letter to the Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry opposing the creation of a PDAB in the state and urging for the bill to be vetoed.
The letter stated:
“The Ensuring Access through Collaborative Health (EACH) and Patient Inclusion Council (PIC) urges you to veto legislation that would create a Prescription Drug Affordability Board (PDAB) with the ultimate goal of setting upper payment limits for high-cost medications (S.B. 401).”
“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.”
“EACH/PIC shares the goal of lowering drug costs for patients and applauds Louisiana 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 you and the legislature to continue focusing on these non-UPL reforms and strongly support legislation (S.B.387) that “delinks” PBM compensation from the price of the drug. To the extent possible, we would ask that the “tie bar” between S.B. 387 and S.B. 401 be removed so that the former can be implemented. Delinking reforms (already enacted in Colorado and by Congress for Medicare Part D) are 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.”