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Attorney General Dave Yost Wants to Change How State Deals with Pharmacy Benefit Managers

Photo of Dave Yost
ANDY CHOW
/
STATEHOUSE NEWS BUREAU
Attorney General Dave Yost, who is calling for changes to how the state deals with pharmacy benefits managers.

Ohio’s attorney general wants lawmakers to make changes to the way the state deals with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). Those are the private companies that handle prescription drug buys for its current and retired employees, Medicaid recipients and the workers’ compensation system. 

Dave Yost wants one centralized state contract with all PBMs. He said that should eliminate the secrecy that he thinks has allowed PBMs to overcharge the state.

“Just as a guess, I’m thinking certainly tens of millions of dollars are on the table here," Yost said.

Yost also wants the auditor to have complete authority to review PBM contracts, purchases and payments, for PBMs to have the legal obligation to act in the state’s best interest and to ban non-disclosure agreements with PBMs. 

Yost said he’s talked to more than a dozen lawmakers about his proposal.

Last year Ohio Medicaid reported the state paid $224 million more to PBMs in 2017 than those PBMs paid to pharmacies.

Karen is a lifelong Ohioan who has served as news director at WCBE-FM, assignment editor/overnight anchor at WBNS-TV, and afternoon drive anchor/assignment editor in WTAM-AM in Cleveland. In addition to her daily reporting for Ohio’s public radio stations, she’s reported for NPR, the BBC, ABC Radio News and other news outlets. She hosts and produces the Statehouse News Bureau’s weekly TV show “The State of Ohio”, which airs on PBS stations statewide. She’s also a frequent guest on WOSU TV’s “Columbus on the Record”, a regular panelist on “The Sound of Ideas” on ideastream in Cleveland, appeared on the inaugural edition of “Face the State” on WBNS-TV and occasionally reports for “PBS Newshour”. She’s often called to moderate debates, including the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s Issue 3/legal marijuana debate and its pre-primary mayoral debate, and the City Club of Cleveland’s US Senate debate in 2012.