WASHINGTON — Congress’ efforts to get more information on the business practices of pharmacy benefit managers are running into an unlikely roadblock: Republicans’ dislike of Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and her approach to antitrust enforcement.
The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing Thursday on a bipartisan bill that aims to get the drug middlemen to tell the FTC how much money they make through pharmacy fees and “spread pricing,” a practice of charging insurers more for drugs than the PBMs pay pharmacies, and pocketing the difference.
Several Republicans on the committee spoke favorably of the bill on Thursday, and when the committee last took up the bill in June, it passed 19-to-9, with six Republican yes votes.
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