The First Shot Fired at PBMs

The Ohio Department of Medicaid officials directed the state’s five managed care plans Tuesday to terminate contracts with pharmacy benefit managers using the secretive pricing method and move to a more transparent pass-through pricing model effective Jan. 1.  Wait, what?  You mean that the government can actually understand the free market and remove the middlemen?  Yup.

The story of PBMs is kind of a fantasy tale.  They started as one-cellular organisms and then grew into a bunch of Godzillas.  In fact, they were making so much money and doing so little that the insurance companies bought them up.  You know, a parasite eating another parasite to become a bigger parasite.  If want to read more about them then see this article.

Transparency is good and it shines the light on the cockroaches but it doesn’t kill them.  There needs to be action for that and that is what the Ohio Department of Medicaid seems to be doing.  Now this needs to spread to all states.  Let’s just hope this first shot fired is not the last.