When you’re hit from all sides — by natural disasters, inflation and rising health care costs — you pay attention when someone promises relief. That’s why proposals to lower drug prices are grabbing policymakers attention in places like Louisiana, where the damage of annual hurricanes and flooding, coupled with years of economic malaise, is leaving families financially strapped.
But Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill are blaming the wrong guys for high drug prices in their state.
Landry and Murrill, like other politicians in the South, suggest pharmacy benefit managers are at fault. Often portrayed as opaque middlemen, PBMs are critical financial negotiators between pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies.
This makes them an easy scapegoat for the inflated medical prices so many Americans are frustrated with today. Currently, Landry has threatened to call a special session over failed legislation that would prohibit companies from simultaneously owning drug stores and PBMs in Louisiana — as companies like CVS do.
The attorney general’s office has targeted Caremark, the PBM owned by CVS, with a lawsuit alleging illegal monopolization by owning both the PBM and pharmacy.
If the lawsuit succeeds, and this legislation makes its way through Baton Rouge, it will likely result in CVS shutting down business in the state.
With fewer pharmacies in Louisiana, medications would become harder to access especially in the rural parishes with limited options in hospitals and pharmacies as it is. And with 29% of the state’s population living in more remote, rural areas, this means over a million Louisianans could wind up driving longer distances to obtain essential treatment.
Despite their current standing within the health care system, PBMs are essential to ensuring patients get the best deal. They negotiate drug prices with manufacturers on behalf of health care plans for large employers, state Medicaid enrollees, and union health funds — helping everyday Americans avoid paying full freight for medications. The alternatives are far worse: Socialistic price controls or manufacturers charging the pure market price.
Are they perfect? No. But at the end of the day, PBMs are the reason your insurance can offer $25 generic drugs instead of $300 name-brand medications. This legislation and lawsuit would only politicize these complex business dynamics, further distorting prices away from consumer demands and the realities of current pharmaceutical supply chains.
If Louisiana lawmakers really want to lower drug costs and expand access, there are better ways. Start by cutting the red tape that keeps medicine from being a more competitive marketplace. Let pharmacists provide more services through scope of practice reform, especially in underserved areas. Push for the expanded access to Health Savings Accounts so people have more control over their health care dollars.
Most of all, trust the people — not politicians — to make smart choices. Louisianans don’t need another layer of bureaucracy standing between them and their medicine. They need more competition, more options and less interference from lawmakers who think they can manipulate affordability from a committee room.
Louisiana doesn’t need to further complicate the drug pricing system just to say they “did something.” It needs policies that encourage competition and limited government.
Sam Raus is the David Boaz Resident Writing Fellow at Young Voices, a political analyst and public relations professional. Follow him on X: @SamRaus1.
