The National Association of Manufacturers announced the launch of a seven-figure video and digital advertising campaign that urges Congress to pass legislation that brings reform to pharmacy benefit managers (PBM), claiming that their practices increase healthcare costs for manufacturers and manufacturing workers.
According to the association’s Q3 2024 Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey, NAM found that 78% of small manufacturers with fewer than 50 employees cited rising healthcare costs as a primary business challenge. This served as the top concern among small business respondents in the survey.
NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons issues the following statement:
Manufacturers are clamoring for Congress to rein in PBMs this year. The momentum is with lawmakers to enact comprehensive reform in both the government and commercial health insurance market that increases transparency and reduces prices for everyone.
Manufacturing workers and retirees are spending more at the pharmacy counter, in large part because insurer-owned PBMs drive up their own profits by inflating prescription drug prices and pocketing discounts that biopharmaceutical manufacturers intended to be passed on to patients.
Congress has an extraordinary opportunity in the lame duck to pass transformative legislation that increases transparency into PBMs’ business practices, delinks PBM compensation from drug prices and puts patients first.