Episode #229 PB-What? The Role of the Pharmacy Benefit Manager in American Healthcare Today with Shawn Gremminger, President and CEO, National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions

About this episode

The episode discusses the role and impact of Pharmacy Benefit Managers in the American healthcare system with guest Shawn Gremminger.

Let’s talk PBM’s. What even is a P-B-M? Pharmacy benefit managers have been around since the 1960’s, although back then, they were basically claims processors. Things changed in the 80’s and 90’s following the first iteration of ERISA when employers saw PBMs as potential cost containment strategies. The industry continued to explode until 2007 when CVS acquired Caremark, and now the market is really consolidated into just three major players. Why does this matter? Well, PBMs control just about everything drug-related in the US these days, and that includes the cost. Given that we have not seen the promised drop in drug prices, Americans and employers are still bearing the burden of this bloated and broken system. To unpack how this works and what folks are doing about it, we invited back Shawn Gremminger, the President and CEO of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions. His organization works with regional coalitions of employers to help them advance health policy, leverage their collective power, and drive market change.

People in this episode

Host: Zeev Neuwirth

Guest: Shawn Gremminger

Topics covered

• Pharmacy Benefit Managers
• Healthcare Cost Containment
• Drug Pricing
• Health Policy
• Market Change

Keywords

• Pharmacy Benefit Manager
• drug prices
• healthcare
• cost containment
• health policy
• CVS
• Caremark

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, CVS, Caremark

Places: United States

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