The Business Council of Alabama (BCA) is rallying troops in opposition to two dueling legislative proposals that are currently awaiting a vote in the Alabama Senate Banking and Insurance Committee.
Former State Senate Majority Leader Clay Scofield, now in charge of policy for BCA, said while the organization agrees that pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are negatively impacting Alabama pharmacists, the proposed legislation – SB93 and SB99 – does not address the core issue.
“Our problem and strong opposition to these bills as written is that they place the cost on employers and their employees without fixing the problem,” Scofield recently told Capitol Journal. “The business community didn’t cause this problem, but they are being asked to shoulder the burden to fix it. And I don’t know in what world that is okay.”
Both bills include a prescription dispensing fee of $10.64, which Scofield said would amount to more than $430 million annually based on 2019 prescription data. He argued that despite claims that PBMs would absorb the costs, they would ultimately be passed down to employers and employees, potentially leading to higher insurance premiums.
“They claim that there’s guardrails in here and there are guardrails to keep the PBMs from passing them down with increased copayments or anything like that – but premiums – we don’t see how premiums don’t go up. We just don’t see that.”
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While Scofield acknowledged room for compromise, he reiterated BCA’s stance that the financial burden should not fall on businesses and workers.
“It’s just going to transfer wealth from employers and employees to pharmacists, to pharmacy owners — not just pharmacists — pharmacy owners. And it’s not just small independent pharmacies. It’s big box stores too. So, it comes with a big price tag,” he said.
“I absolutely think that there’s a compromise here, but there is no compromise — no compromise — in making employers and employees bear the cost of something that they didn’t create.”
SB99 and SB93 are expected to reemerge for debate, and potentially a vote on Wednesday in the Alabama Senate Banking and Insurance committee.
Last month, a public hearing drew independent pharmacists speaking in favor of reform and groups opposing the measure that share the concerns being actively communicated by Scofield and others.
Grayson Everett is the editor in chief of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on X @Grayson270.
