The Senate Finance Committee passed a bipartisan bill addressing Medicare, mental health, and pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) practices with overwhelming support, despite one senator abstaining from the vote. The PBM provisions in the bill aim to reduce middlemen tactics that drive up prescription drug costs for patients and taxpayers, steering the prescription drug market towards rationality by ensuring lower costs. The bill also includes provisions to address “ghost networks” in mental health provider directories and extensions for expiring Medicare and Medicaid payment provisions, along with bonus payments for physicians shifting to value-based care.
This bipartisan legislation advanced through the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday on a nearly unanimous vote, with support from 26 out of 27 members of the panel. The bill targets issues related to Medicare payments, mental health, and pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) practices, aiming to curb practices that result in increased healthcare costs. In particular, the PBM provisions seek to eliminate middlemen tactics that drive up health costs for patients and taxpayers, promoting lower drug costs through rational market incentives. Additionally, the bill addresses “ghost networks” in mental health provider directories and includes provisions to extend expiring Medicare and Medicaid payment provisions, ultimately finding a way to balance the savings from the new provisions with the cost of the extensions and making it more likely to fit into a year-end government spending bill.
