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A House panel Tuesday approved health care measures that deal with pharmacy benefit managers and what is known as “step therapy” protocols, but it made changes that narrowed the pharmacy benefit managers bill (HB 1155). “Everything of substance has been taken out. Everything that would actually do something has been taken out. This bill has been so neutered so much it doesn’t even have a gender any more,” said Barney Bishop, a lobbyist for a group called Small Business Pharmacies Aligned for Reform. (4/1)

For the second time this year, California officials have delayed a much-ballyhooed effort to start a program in which the state would negotiate prescription drug prices and create a vast, single bulk-purchasing system. But this time, it is unclear when the initiative will get off the ground. A notice on the California Department of Health Care Services website says the new Medi-Cal Rx program was scheduled to start on April 1, but has been delayed. No start date was given and a department spokesperson wrote us that an update will be provided next month. The website indicates a meeting is scheduled for May 19. (Silverman, 4/6)

As the regulatory agency for the insurance industry in Montana, we are tasked to review health insurance rates offered by commercial plans, like Blue Cross or Pacific Source. One clear and unchanging trend is that health insurance plans spend a tremendous amount of money paying for prescription drugs for enrollees. (Downing, 4/2)

In 2016, the state prisons’ medical system was allowing millions to slip away by passing up federal discounts from costly inmates’ prescriptions, a legislative watchdog team observed. Then came a pointed report from the agency, the Program Evaluation Division, that brought about a mandate for change in 2018. And legislation changing the practice resulted the next year. (Goldsmith, 4/7)

Centene Corp. criticized the Ohio attorney general for lacking a "basic understanding" of the state's $26 billion Medicaid program, claiming he wasted taxpayer time and money accusing Centene of overcharging the state by millions in drug costs. "There are no secrets here; there is nothing that needs to be hidden or, in fact, that even justifies the filing of this lawsuit," Centene wrote in a federal court filing in Ohio on Friday. (Tepper, 4/6)

Two weeks before President Donald Trump left office, his administration bestowed a parting gift on the U.S. prescription drug industry. It proposed a rule to block the government from citing exorbitant prices to seize control of a drug’s production. The rule, drawn up by a division of the Commerce Department, would settle a long-running battle over when government is justified in exercising “march in” rights over taxpayer-supported government inventions. The 40-year-old Bayh-Dole law gives the government power to grant a license to another manufacturer if a company is not making a government-sponsored invention available to the public on “reasonable terms.” (Rowland, 3/31)

With the cost of prescription drugs rising and many in the nation experiencing employment disruptions, a lot of people may still be struggling to afford essentials like their medications. Here are answers to a few common questions Medicare beneficiaries may have about drug price increases, as well as a few simple ways to help lower costs. Prescription drug prices are getting expensive. According to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, half of all Part D-covered drugs had list price increases that exceeded the rate of inflation between July 2018 and July 2019. Among the drugs with list price increases exceeding inflation between 2018 and 2019, the median list price increase was 6.4%, or 3.5 times the rate of inflation. (Cissell, 4/1)