Morgan Griffith on the Patient's Right to Know

From U.S. Representative Morgan Griffith, R-VA-9, with a loud "amen" from the choir. (When my late husband needed an antibiotic in the hospital, he was too sick to explain why, but not too sick to remember to insist I buy it with cash. It was expensive at the neighborhood pharmacy--and twice as expensive when the hospital added it to insurance.)

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Drug Prices, Gag Clauses, and Sunlight
High prices for prescription drugs affect the pocketbooks of many residents of the Ninth District. Even with health insurance, people have trouble paying for their prescriptions.
Many factors affect what a person pays when he or she fills a prescription. There isn’t a silver bullet that will take care of this problem, but I believe more transparency is essential to helping address it. As the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant.”
One of the most egregious ways in which lack of transparency results in higher drug prices is the so-called “gag clause.” Sometimes a person can save money by paying cash for a prescription rather than relying on health insurance. But gag clauses imposed by pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) in contracts can prevent pharmacists from telling customers that they could save money.
This is an unfair practice. Prescription drugs are difficult enough to pay for even when you have all the information on the table.
There are efforts at the federal and state level to bring sunlight to drug prices and end the practice of gag clauses. In the House of Representatives, I am an original co-sponsor of a bill introduced by the only pharmacist in Congress, Congressman Buddy Carter (R-GA). This bipartisan bill, H.R. 5343, the Prescription Transparency Act, would prohibit gag clauses at the national level. It has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, on which I serve.
As the Trump Administration has also taken aim at drug pricing, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma recently noted that her agency views gag clauses as “unacceptable and contrary to our efforts to promote drug price transparency and lower drug prices.”
In Virginia, state Delegate Todd Pillion introduced a bill during this year’s legislative session to prohibit gag clauses in provider contracts entered into, amended, extended, or renewed on or after January 1, 2019. This bill passed the General Assembly and was signed into law by Governor Northam.
Ending gag clauses would be a positive step toward greater transparency and, ultimately, lower prices for prescription drugs.
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