Last week the Nebraska Legislature debated the main budget bills for the State. These budget bills always tell State Senators what the State cannot afford, but we end up spending the money anyway. That’s very easy to do when you are spending other people’s money.
A canal, a new prison and tax cuts are taking prominent spots on the agenda for the second half of the Nebraska Legislature’s current session.
One of the issues which has concerned me ever since I sat on the Legislature’s HHS Committee is what to do about pharmacy benefit managers, otherwise known as PBMs. Pharmacy benefit managers are the middlemen who provide our pharmacies with prescription drugs. PBMs negotiate with drug manufacturers on behalf of government health plans, private health plans, and employer-based health insurance plans. The deals they strike with pharmaceutical companies determine the availability of drugs as well as the prices paid for drugs by 266 million Americans.
It has been said “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.”
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Bridgeport, NE 69336-0400
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