House Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., talked Wednesday about the possibility of the House passing some health care legislation through regular order. Credit: House Energy and commerce
Shawn Gremminger, president of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, spoke on Capitol Hill Wednesday in support of two pharmacy manager bills that came close to passing in December.
Gremminger appeared at a hearing on PBMs organized by the House Energy and Commerce Committee's health subcommittee.
Recommended For You
Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., the highest-ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said every Democrat would vote for the PBM bills and some Medicaid bills if Republicans let the bills go to the House floor using the "suspension calendar," or list of post office naming bills and other measures that qualify for fast-track status because they face little opposition.
Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky, chairman of the full committee, suggested that the PBM bills are popular enough that they might get through Congress on their own, outside of the budget reconciliation process used to pass big, must-pass spending bills.
"To be able to move these outside of reconciliation, we're going to have to work together in a bipartisan way," Guthrie said. "And, hopefully, we're going to find that pathway to do it in a bipartisan way."
What it means: Guthrie didn't say the PBM bills will pass soon, but he seemed to be open to the possibility that they could pass.
The hearing: The witness list included Matthew Fiedler, an economist at the Brookings Institution; Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA, and Hugh Chancy, a pharmacist, in addition to Gremminger.
Gremminger leads a group that represents about 40 regional and local employer coalitions. The coalition members spend about $400 billion per year to provide health coverage for 45 million people.
Gremminger asked for lawmakers' support for a revival of section 901 and section 902 of the Further Continuing Appropriations and Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2025 package, the spending package that almost became law in December.
Section 901 would require pharmacy benefit managers to provide detailed reports for employers, and section 902 would require PBMs to pass any rebates they negotiate with prescription drug manufacturers on to the plans.
Related: New 'must pass' House package includes employer plan PBM section
Elon Musk, an advisor to President Donald Trump, objected to the package and pushed House Republicans to replace the 1,547-page package with a 116-page version with no PBM provisions.Gremminger also talked about two concerns his group has about the big PBMs' strategies.
One is a tendency for PBMs to "place drugs with limited clinical value and higher net cost on preferred tiers on an employer formulary," Gremminger said.
Another happens when a PBM extracts higher discounts that aren't passed on to employers from a drug manufacturer that's trying to expand the market for an overpriced or low-value drug, Gremminger said.
A provision in section 901 of the Further Continuing Appropriations bill could ease those problems, by requiring PBMs to disclose formulary placement decisions and provide explanations for the placement decisions, Gremminger said.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
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.
