House Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky. Credit: Guthrie
Rep. Brett Guthrie, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Wednesday that he and colleagues hope to pass new versions of the bipartisan health bills that were stripped out of a critical spending package in December.
One measure that could be alive is a bill that would regulate how pharmacy benefit managers serve employer-sponsored health plans.
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Guthrie, a Kentucky Republican, talked about the future of the health bills at a committee organizational meeting.
House Energy and Commerce shares jurisdiction over health with other House committees. Guthrie said in his opening remarks at the meeting that one goal will be to provide more health care price transparency for consumers and businesses.
Rep. Betty Castor, Fla., another committee member, asked about the fate of House Energy and Commerce health bills that were cut out of the American Relief Act 2025 package, a bill needed to keep the federal government open, at the last minute. She mentioned that some of the legislation left out of the package was PBM regulation legislation.
Guthrie looked apologetic as he talked about the health bills. "I was disappointed that those didn't get past the finish line," Guthrie said. "They're still alive. We're trying to find the right avenue for them. It is a priority."
Guthrie did not refer directly to the PBM legislation, but his comments suggest that the PBM legislation could move forward along with the other bipartisan House Energy health bills that died in December.
The must-pass spending package: In recent years, Congress has passed even many popular, bipartisan bills by putting them in large, important spending packages.
In December, congressional leaders put many House Energy health bills in the "Further Continuing Appropriations and Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act 2025" package.
The package included spending provisions needed to keep the federal government open and to provide disaster relief for millions of Americans hit hard by Hurricane Helene.
The package also included a Medicare PBM provision and an employer PBM provision.
Related: New 'must pass' House package includes employer plan PBM section
The Medicare PBM provision would have prohibited PBMs from basing their compensation on the discounts they negotiated for Medicare. Medicare PBMs would have had to stick to collecting service fees.
The employer PBM provision would have created new reporting requirements for employers' PBMs and required employers' PBMs to pass all rebates on to the employers' plans, rather than keeping a percentage of the discounts they negotiated.
When congressional leaders were negotiating over the final version of the spending package with representatives of President-elect Donald Trump, most of the House Energy health provisions, including the PBM provisions, were taken out before outgoing President Joe Biden signed the package into law.
The future: The 118th Congress ended Jan. 2. All bills introduced during the 118th Congress have expired. If lawmakers want to save any of the bills that were included in the original, 1,547-page spending package, they will have to put the legislation in new bills or amendments.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
