A bill tightening regulations on pharmacy benefit managers cleared a House committee on Monday, but not before a member accused other lawmakers of making deals to ensure its passage at the expense of his own legislation.
"I'm very disappointed in the Arkansas Pharmacists Association and certain senators who have used this bill and another bill to go back and forth, and I think it's very dishonest," Rep. Aaron Pilkington, R-Clarksville, said during the meeting of the House Committee on Insurance and Commerce.
"While I do not like the way that that happens, I'm still going to be voting yes for this bill because you should [vote] on a bill whether it's good legislation or not, not making deals in back rooms."
Senate Bill 520, sponsored by Sen. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, would prohibit certain tactics used by pharmacy benefit managers, the middlemen who bargain drug prices, to recoup payments to pharmacies.
The bill, sponsored in the House by Rep. Michelle Gray, R-Melbourne, would prohibit pharmacy benefit managers from earning profits by charging the health plans more than the companies pay pharmacies for the same drugs.
The benefits managers would also have to report quarterly to the state insurance commissioner the amount of rebates they received from drug companies and how much of the rebates were passed along to the health plan or its enrollees.
The reports would be considered proprietary and not subject to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
[RELATED: Complete Democrat-Gazette coverage of the Arkansas Legislature]
SB520 would also clarify that pharmacy benefit managers hired by Medicaid managed-care companies are subject to regulation by the Arkansas Insurance Department under a law passed during a special session of the Legislature last year.
The managed-care companies on March 1 took over providing health benefits to about 40,000 Medicaid recipients with significant mental illness or developmental disabilities.
The Senate passed the bill unanimously on Thursday.
On Monday, the House Insurance and Commerce Committee advanced it to the full House in a voice vote, with no members dissenting.
After the meeting, Pilkington said Hammer and Sen. Ronald Caldwell of Wynne had agreed to not support one of Pilkington's bills in exchange for Sen. Missy Irvin not opposing SB520.
Irvin, R-Mountain View, didn't return a call on Monday seeking a response to Pilkington's comments.
Both Hammer and Caldwell denied making any deals.
They did say that they had refused to participate in an effort to send Pilkington's bill, House Bill 1290, from the Senate Committee on Public Health, Welfare and Labor, of which they are both members, to the full Senate based on the signatures of a majority of the committee members.
They said that's because they didn't think it was appropriate for the committee to advance the bill without a hearing or debate. Pilkington's bill would allow patients to obtain birth control pills from a pharmacy without first obtaining a doctor's prescription.
The Senate public health committee tabled HB1290 on March 20, after Pilkington failed to show up for a hearing at which it had been scheduled as a special order of business.
At the time, Pilkington said Irvin had threatened to vote against SB520 if HB1290 cleared the Senate public health committee, of which Irvin is chairman.
Hammer said Monday that Pilkington was the one who had offered a deal. He said Pilkington had agreed to support SB520 if Hammer would help sign HB1290 out of the Senate public health committee.
"I would not because [HB1290] was not vetted in committee, No. 1. And No. 2, each bill needs to stand on its own merit," Hammer said.
Pilkington, a cosponsor of SB520, said he didn't offer Hammer a deal.
"I just said that I'm supportive of his bill and I hope that he'd be supportive of my bill as well," Pilkington said.
Caldwell said no one asked him to make a deal involving HB1290 or SB520.
"I just voted bills the way I voted," he said. "I had no agreement."
During the House Insurance and Commerce Committee meeting on Monday, Pilkington asked John Vinson, chief operating officer of the Arkansas Pharmacists Association, whether the association had agreed to drop its support of HB1290 if Caldwell and Hammer would support SB520.
The chairman, Rep. Mark Lowery, ruled the question out of order before Vinson could answer.
Vinson said after the meeting that he wasn't sure what Pilkington was referring to.
The association "decided not to make [HB1290] a priority" after hearing opposition from the Arkansas Medical Society and multiple members of the Senate public health committee, he said.
"We got uncomfortable because pharmacists want to work with their physician," he said.
He said SB520 has been the association's "priority from day one."
Metro on 04/09/2019