Latest news with #HouseBill1150
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Reading City Council calls for increase in PA minimum wage
City Council is calling on the state Legislature to increase Pennsylvania's minimum wage. Council recently unanimously adopted a resolution introduced by Councilman Jaime Baez Jr. urging the state Senate to approve House Bill 1150. The bill, proposed by state Rep. G. Roni Green, a Philadelphia Democrat, would raise the hourly minimum wage to $15 from $7.25, beginning Jan. 1. It would also require that any future minimum wage legislation include an annual cost of living adjustment and lift the current state restrictions that keep municipalities from setting their own minimum wage standards or other wage-related regulations. 'I want to thank Rep. Roni Green for presenting this, and I want to thank the House Representatives for continuing to pass not only one year but multiple years of minimum wage legislation,' Baez said. Baez, who last year introduced a similar resolution also passed by council, said previous efforts to raise the minimum wage got stuck in the state Senate. Reading City Council calls for increase in Pennsylvania's minimum hourly wage 'So I urge the public, those who are watching, those here present, including ourselves as councilors, and those present here in the audience, to reach out to your state senators to apply some pressure,' Baez said. 'Make sure you're emailing, calling, letting them know that this is necessary.' Green in a February memo to fellow House members said it is impossible to raise a family on Pennsylvania's current minimum wage. 'Even households of one cannot feed themselves, pay rent and utilities, and save for their future on a $7.25 per hour wage,' she wrote. Pennsylvania last raised its hourly minimum wage to $7.25 from $7.15 in 2009, when the federal minimum wage was increased to $7.25 from $6.55. Currently, 34 states, territories and districts have minimum wages above the federal minimum wage, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures' website, The District of Columbia, at $17 per hour, has the highest minimum wage, followed by Washington at $16.28 per hour. New Jersey's new hourly minimum wage of $15.13 for most employees took effect at the start of last year. For seasonal and small employers, that state's minimum is lower: $13.73 up from $12.93. New York also raised its hourly minimum wage, effective Jan. 1, 2024, to $16 in New York City, Long Island and Westchester County and $15 in the rest of the state. 'I have to say that I think we all love Pennsylvania, but sometimes Pennsylvania is way behind a lot of other states in many ways, Council President Donna Reed said. 'The fact that all our surrounding states have pretty much improved their minimum wage and we are still at a minimum wage that is 20-plus years old is absurd.' Reed thanked Baez for introducing the resolution and urged city residents to contact their state senators and ask them to adopt the bill. 'Whenever you can, however you can, call them, write emails, get to Harrisburg, visit their offices,' she said. Several residents, including representatives of the advocacy organization Berks Stands Up, spoke to council during the public comment period. They urged council members to support the resolution. Jae Elizabeth Giesen said she has a college degree and has held a job in Reading for the past eight years. She would like to move out of her parents' home, but at current rental rates she cannot afford an apartment on her own. 'The only reason I'm able to keep myself going right now is because I have the support of my parents,' she said, urging council to pass the resolution. City Managing Director Jack Gombach read a statement from Mayor Eddie Moran, who also urged the Senate to take action to increase the minimum wage. The city raised the minimum starting wages for its employees, the mayor said, because it was the right thing to do. 'Now it's time for the state to follow,' he said. 'I strongly support raising Pennsylvania's minimum wage to $15 an hour and urge the Legislature to pass HB 1150. Let's make sure everyone who works hard has a fair shot to build a better life.'
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
CVS sues Arkansas over new pharmacy law
ARKANSAS (KNWA/KFTA) — CVS Health has filed a federal lawsuit against a new Arkansas law that it says unfairly targets out-of-state pharmacies and breaks several parts of the U.S. Constitution. The law, called House Bill 1150 (HB 1150), was signed by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders earlier this year and will start on January 1, 2026. It aims to regulate pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and stops pharmacies connected to PBMs from operating in Arkansas. In the suit, CVS said the law is 'engineered to protect local pharmacy interests from competition with out-of-state pharmacies' like itself. The lawsuit, filed in federal court, says HB 1150 basically bans most PBM-affiliated pharmacies, including CVS, from selling prescription drugs in Arkansas. PBMs act as middlemen between insurance companies, drug makers and pharmacies. They negotiate drug prices and manage pharmacy benefits for health plans. Some big pharmacy chains, like CVS, have their own PBMs or work with them. HB 1150 only allows pharmacies connected to PBMs to operate in Arkansas if the PBM serves only its own employees' health plan — a rule that mainly benefits Walmart, the state's biggest employer, CVS claims in the suit. Gov. Sanders signs bill that prevents pharmacy benefit managers from owning pharmacies CVS also claims the law breaks the Dormant Commerce Clause because it discriminates against out-of-state businesses, the Equal Protection Clause because it treats similar businesses unfairly and the Supremacy Clause because it conflicts with federal laws like ERISA and Medicare rules. CVS says if the law takes effect, it will have to close its 23 stores in Arkansas and stop its mail-order and specialty pharmacy services used by 'tens of thousands of Arkansans.' HB-1150-Complaint-5-29-2025Download The full lawsuit can be viewed above. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Two federal lawsuits challenge Arkansas anti-PBM law
Rep. Jeremiah Moore (right), R-Clarendon, and Sen. Kim Hammer (second from right). R-Benton, listen to opposition to House Bill 1150 from Randy Zook, president of the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce, during the Senate Committee on Insurance and Commerce meeting on Tuesday, April 8, 2025. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate) Two federal lawsuits filed Thursday argue that a new state law will harm hundreds of thousands of Arkansans by affecting access to needed medications. Two of the country's largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) filed the complaints in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, both arguing that Act 624 of 2025 violates the U.S. Constitution by interfering with interstate commerce. The suits also allege that federal law preempts state laws that affect employee health plans and Medicare coverage. The suits filed by Express Scripts Inc. and CVS Pharmacy Inc. name the eight members of the Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy and its executive director as defendants. The new law empowers the pharmacy board to enforce its provisions. Both complaints ask the court to bar enforcement of the law as well as declare it unconstitutional. Act 624 'imperils the health' of 50,000 Arkansans who rely on Express Scripts for pharmacy benefits through their health insurance, the PBM's complaint says. The General Assembly created the law 'for the exclusive benefit of Arkansas-based pharmacies who spearheaded the legislation in order to increase their market share by eliminating out-of-state competition,' the complaint states. Health insurer Cigna owns Express Scripts; CVS Pharmacy owns the PBM Caremark Rx. Together with OptumRx, owned by United Healthcare, the PBMs manage 79% of prescription drug claims for approximately 270 million people, according to a 2024 Federal Trade Commission report. Arkansas became the first state in the nation to ban large, vertically integrated healthcare companies from also operating drugstores in the state when Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed House Bill 1150 into law in mid-April. The law doesn't take effect until January 2026. 'If left to stand, the law will have devastating consequences across Arkansas — including forcing numerous pharmacies operating in the state out of business, costing the more than 600 Arkansans employed at those pharmacies their jobs, and creating pharmacy 'deserts' for the nearly 40% of Arkansans who live in rural areas that often lack brick-and-mortar pharmacies,' Express Scripts asserts in its complaint. 'The law will also dangerously limit patient choice and deny access to lifesaving drugs at affordable prices by high-quality pharmacy providers. And it will create mass confusion among Arkansans about where and how they can receive needed prescription medications,' the suit adds. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX In its complaint, CVS says that if the law takes effect on Jan. 1, the company 'will have to cease not only its operations at 23 CVS retail pharmacies across the State, but also its mail-order and specialty-pharmacy services. Indeed, the law will likely shut down a substantial portion of all mail-order and specialty-pharmacy prescriptions flowing into the State because the majority of such providers are out-of-state pharmacies with PBM affiliations.' The complaint notes that CVS's 23 pharmacies served more than 340,000 patients and filled over 2.4 million prescriptions in 2024. Complying with the law will impose undue burdens on CVS because of the intricacies of its corporate structure, the complaint says. CVS further claims the law already has begun affecting its business, as it has lost patients to in-state competitors and it's become harder to attract and retain employees in Arkansas. The CVS complaint calls Act 624 'a blatantly protectionist measure,' a characterization echoed in Express Script's argument for a court-ordered injunction: 'Because Act 624 is unconstitutionally protectionist, unconstitutionally punitive, and preempted by federal law, enforcement of the statute must be enjoined.' Both lawsuits argue that the Arkansas law violates various commerce provisions of the Constitution, and CVS argues that it violates the equal protection clause by banning CVS and most other PBM-affiliated pharmacies from Arkansas while exempting 'the only Arkansas-based pharmacy affiliated with a PBM [Walmart], without a rational justification for this distinction.' Express Script's complaint also notes that Act 624 will adversely affect members of the military, their families and veterans because the PBM is the primary mail-order pharmacy provider for Tricare, the military's health insurance program. The law allows the state pharmacy board to issue limited permits to PBMs if they provide 'drugs that are otherwise unavailable in the market to a patient or a pharmacy that would otherwise be prohibited' under the law. Republican Sen. Kim Hammer of Benton, the law's co-sponsor, told the Senate this will allow Tricare beneficiaries to continue receiving medications while PBMs transition out of Arkansas. Attorney General Tim Griffin said in a statement that 'Arkansas is standing up to PBMs on behalf of consumers' via Act 624 and vowed to defend the law. 'Pharmacy benefit managers wield outsized power to reap massive profits at the expense of consumers. The rise of PBMs as middlemen in the prescription drug market has resulted in patients facing fewer choices, lower quality care, and higher prices. PBMs leverage their affiliated pharmacies to manipulate prices, corrupt the market, and destroy competition,' Griffin said, echoing many of the talking points of the law's proponents as it made its way through the Legislature. Shortly before Act 624 became law, Griffin was the lead signatory of a bipartisan letter to Congress from attorneys general in 39 states and territories, advocating for the policy in Act 624 to be enacted federally. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Fayetteville pharmacy reacts to act creating fairer pharmaceutical industry
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed House Bill 1150 into law April 16, creating a fairer pharmaceutical industry in the Natural State. The bill, now enacted, aims 'to prohibit a pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) from obtaining certain pharmacy permits,' which limits PBMs' abilities to be both that and pharmacies. 'This will prevent inflated drug prices, protect pharmaceutical access across our state, and help Arkansas be healthier for less money,' Sanders said in a statement. Over in Northwest Arkansas, pharmacists like Live+Well Pharmacy's Caul Corbell have been following the status of the bill since it was introduced in January of 2025. 'We're really excited here because what we think House Bill 1150 represents is an absolute home run for the patients of Arkansas as far as their access to health care and a huge step forward in hopefully driving down the prices of drugs for patients across the state,' said Corbell. Corbell has been a pharmacist since 2014 and has seen the ups and downs over the years of working in an industry with PBMs. Student athletes speak on impact of Arkansas' first sports officiator class 'What those entities are set up to do is they handle distributing the pharmacy benefits that your insurance company covers, and they essentially serve as middlemen between your insurance company and a pharmacy,' he said. 'What started out once as a good thing has grown into a market that really lends itself more towards creating monopolies.' In Corbell's experience, he said over the years he often found himself at a crossroad of caring for patients or keeping the pharmacy doors open. 'You just you see it with every prescription that you run, and you hate,' Corbell said. 'One of the things I hate the most about being a pharmacist is being in a position where you either have to, you know, take a loss for the pharmacy or take care of your patient. And you stretch it as far as you can, you know what I mean?' As a pharmacist, Corbell said he took an oath that the patient comes first, but with an increasingly competitive market, PBMs have made it difficult for pharmacists like Corbell to uphold that oath without breaking even. However, with the new bill signed, he said he feels thankful to the Arkansas legislation for continuing their efforts towards a pharmaceutical industry that allows those working in it to show they do truly care for their patients. 'I will never be afraid to stand up for our seniors, our veterans, and everyone else who relies on their local pharmacy to stay healthy,' said Sanders. Though Corbell believes the industry hasn't reached perfection yet, he believes the progress is overwhelming, and the next step in the fight towards a fairer market is enforcing the new act. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Arkansas governor signs first-in-the-nation ban on drug middlemen owning pharmacies
Greg Reybold (seated), vice president of Healthcare Policy at the American Pharmacy Cooperative, expresses support for Arkansas banning pharmacy benefit managers from owning pharmacy permits at the Arkansas Capitol on Tuesday, April 8, 2025. At right is John Vinson, CEO of the Arkansas Pharmacists Association, who also supported the policy. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate) Arkansas became the first state in the nation to prevent healthcare conglomerates from operating drugstores here when Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed House Bill 1150 on Wednesday. State law already regulates what pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) pay to reimburse independent pharmacies, but pharmacists have complained that the companies violate the law. The state has also fined four PBMs a total of $1.47 million for paying Arkansas pharmacies below the legally required amount for prescription drugs. PBMs negotiate prescription benefits among drug manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies and health insurance providers, and the biggest ones also own pharmacies and insurers. The Federal Trade Commission released an interim report in July 2024 saying these conglomerates are eliminating competition and increasing drug prices at the expense of patients. HB 1150 headed to Sanders' desk April 9 after clearing the Senate with a bipartisan 26 votes, six days after it passed the House with 89 votes. The bill generated hours of discussion and public comment in the House and Senate committees on Insurance and Commerce this month. 'These massive corporations are attacking our state because we will be the first in the country to hold them accountable for their anticompetitive actions,' Sanders said in a statement Wednesday. CVS Health issued a statement last week urging Sanders to veto HB 1150, calling it 'misguided policy.' The organization, which includes the CVS Caremark PBM, issued another statement Wednesday afternoon. 'CVS Health welcomes a good faith discussion with policy makers in Arkansas and across the country on ways to make medicine more affordable and accessible,' the statement said. 'Unfortunately, HB1150 is bad policy that accomplishes just the opposite: it will take away access to pharmacy care in local communities, hike prescription drug spending across the state by millions of dollars each year, and cost hundreds of Arkansans their jobs.' Federal regulator: Pharmacy middlemen appear to be raising prices, hurting patients Arkansas has 23 CVS pharmacies that CVS and other opponents of HB 1150 said will be forced to close under the new law. Arkansas Pharmacists Association CEO John Vinson said this is not true and pharmacies can still operate if they detach from PBMs. Sanders, Vinson and other supporters of HB 1150 have said a lack of sufficient regulation of PBMs has allowed them to monopolize the pharmaceutical industry by setting their competitors' prices. OptumRX, Express Scripts and CVS Caremark — the three largest PBMs — are each owned by much larger corporations that each also own a top-10 health insurer. Together they control about 80% of the U.S. prescription market, according to last year's Federal Trade Commission report. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Act 1 and Act 3 of 2018 prohibit PBMs from reimbursing their affiliated pharmacies in Arkansas at a higher rate than their competitors, locally owned independent pharmacies. PBMs routinely break these laws, said Vinson and HB 1150's Republican sponsors, Sen. Kim Hammer of Benton and Rep. Jeremiah Moore of Clarendon. PBMs have allegedly also violated Act 900 of 2015, which required PBMs to pay pharmacies at least as much as the national average of what drugstores pay wholesalers for drugs. Pharmacies sent the Arkansas Insurance Department (AID) thousands of complaints in 2024, claiming PBMs either illegally paid them below this national average or paid them at or just above this amount, independent pharmacists and AID's general counsel told lawmakers last year. Pharmacy benefit managers will have to pay Arkansas drugstores dispensing fees under new rule This led the Arkansas Legislative Council to require PBMs to include dispensing fees in their reimbursements for prescription drugs. The panel approved the rule a day after its Administrative Rules subcommittee rejected it. Hammer told the Senate Insurance committee April 8 that the Legislature should not be 'rewarding' violators of state law 'by letting them stay in business.' 'Congress is pursuing this issue. Why? Because states like Arkansas are not sitting on the sidelines and being quiet about it,' Hammer said. '[If you say], 'Let's sit back and wait for Congress,' like sitting back and waiting for the Lord to come, it ain't going to happen soon enough.' After more than a century serving Hammer's constituents in Benton, Smith-Caldwell Drug Store closed in August 2023 due to financial insolvency and transferred its clients to Walgreens, a national chain that isn't part of a PBM. Brad Lawson, a Little Rock-based healthcare supervisor for Walgreens, told lawmakers in December that unfair PBM reimbursements have forced the company to close several locations and plan further closures nationwide. Walgreens declined to comment Thursday on HB 1150. In an April 4 interview with the Advocate, CVS leaders said the Caremark PBM not only complies with Arkansas law but also reimburses independent pharmacies at a higher rate than its own chain pharmacies. They also said employers whose health insurance plans include CVS will face higher costs. This is not grassroots opposition to this bill. This is astroturf. – Sen. Mark Johnson, R-Ferndale, who supported HB 1150 'Patients are choosing us, they have a choice, and I think we're not allowing patients to have a choice in this bill,' Chief Pharmacy Officer Lucille Accetta said. When asked about HB 1150's potential financial impact on CVS, Accetta and Vice President of External Relations David Whitrap said the losses of pharmacists' jobs and patients' access to medication are higher priorities than money. CVS closed 244 stores between 2018 and 2020 and 900 more stores between 2021 and 2024. CVS District Leader of Pharmacy Operations Ashley Ellis spoke against the bill at both Insurance and Commerce committee meetings, saying she and her colleagues would lose their jobs if HB 1150 becomes law. Ellis lives in Greenbrier, represented by Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View. Irvin was in the minority of Senate committee members to vote against HB 1150, and she said she would not vote for a constituent to lose her job. Hammer said the potential loss of CVS employees' jobs is 'a lie.' 'If they want to argue these local [corporate] pharmacies shouldn't be going out of business because they get paid adequately, fine,' he said. 'Put your money where your mouth is. Prove it. Start paying yourselves like you're paying these others.' Several lawmakers said this month that they supported HB 1150 partly because they received emails urging them to vote against it that appeared to be from constituents but turned out to be from lobbyists opposing the legislation. Rep. Richard McGrew, R-Hot Springs, told the House Insurance Committee that CVS clients in his district had not consented to their names being used for this purpose. Sen. Mark Johnson, R-Ferndale, told the equivalent Senate committee that he received similar misleading emails. 'This is not grassroots opposition to this bill,' Johnson said. 'This is astroturf.' Besides CVS Health, opponents of HB 1150 included the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce, the Navitus Health Solutions PBM, and the Omnicare and Accredo pharmacies. Omnicare is owned by CVS Health, and Accredo is a subsidiary of Express Scripts. Several PBMs are affiliated with interstate mail-order pharmacy operations, and House Bill 1150 includes mail-order pharmacy permits among those that PBMs would be prohibited from holding. Opponents of HB 1150 said it would reduce patients' access to specialty drugs, some of which might only be accessible via mail-order services — including for military members and veterans who receive pharmaceuticals via the Tricare insurance program's partnership with Express Scripts. HB 1150 allows the State Board of Pharmacy to issue limited permits to PBMs if they provide 'drugs that are otherwise unavailable in the market to a patient or a pharmacy that would otherwise be prohibited' under the law. Hammer told the Senate this will allow Tricare beneficiaries to continue receiving medications while PBMs transition out of Arkansas. Despite being a veteran on Tricare, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin's pharmacy services have been moved from one provider to another by PBM interference, he said in January at a news conference announcing HB 1150. He also said he would defend the legislation in court if it were challenged. On Monday, Griffin was the lead signatory of a bipartisan letter to Congress from attorneys general in 39 states and territories, advocating for the policy in HB 1150 to be enacted federally. Griffin sued Express Scripts and OptumRX last year, alleging that they used data from drug manufacturers and distributors to maximize their financial gain instead of using it to mitigate the opioid addiction epidemic. Put your money where your mouth is... Start paying yourselves like you're paying these others. – Sen. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, a primary sponsor of House Bill 1150 Irvin was one of nine senators, mostly Republicans, to vote against HB 1150 last week. She disputed the claim that PBMs have a monopoly in the pharmaceutical industry, saying this is only an opinion without a court's declaration. Senate Minority Whip Fred Love, D-Mabelvale, was the chamber's only Democrat to vote against the bill. Love's district does not have any local independent pharmacies, and his constituents will lose access to medications if corporate pharmacies like CVS close, he said. 'They've been talking to me saying, 'Guess what? This will hurt us,'' Love said. 'So we're going to manufacture a pharmacy desert in southwest Little Rock? That's not good for my people.' Irvin also took issue with a statement April 8 from Greg Reybold, vice president of Healthcare Policy at the American Pharmacy Cooperative, that HB 1150 will 'take the ball away' from PBMs in Arkansas' pharmacy industry. 'We're using the government to say, 'We're getting rid of your competition,'' Irvin said. '…It says that we're denying a permit to be approved for you, but not for you. You're picking winners and losers.' GOP Sen. Justin Boyd, a Fort Smith pharmacist and the vice chairman of the Senate Insurance committee, argued that PBMs' ability to set their competitors' prices is actually 'picking winners and losers.' Another 2025 Arkansas law that supporters said will increase patients' access to medication is Act 52, which removed the state's ban on nonprofit hospitals holding pharmacy permits. The bill, co-sponsored by Irvin, initially failed in the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee but later passed after being amended. The Arkansas Pharmacists Association opposed Act 52 before it was amended. Vinson told the Senate Insurance committee that Act 52 will create new pharmacy jobs that could make up for any job loss brought about by HB 1150. Both laws will go into effect in August. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
