Governor Ron DeSantis signs a bill to give $70 million to support fathers and help families. [Photo Credit: Government of Florida, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]

DeSantis Takes Action on Drug Transparency as Biden Falters

Joe Biden has failed to take action on drug transparency and Ron DeSantis is now taking action.

Governor Desantis (R-Fl.) has issued an executive order to ensure transparency for prescription drug costs.

The order comes into response to the Biden administration’s failure to approve Florida’s Canadian Prescription Drug Importation Program, The Daily Wire reports.

The report indicates:

The order targets pharmacy benefit managers (PBM), who manage prescription drug benefits for insurance companies, by directing Florida state agencies to enact regulations preventing spread pricing and reimbursement clawbacks, which DeSantis calls “deceptive.” Spread pricing reimburses pharmacies for a price different from what the PBM charges the health plan, thus gaining the PBM a profit; clawbacks exist when a PBM charges a direct and indirect remuneration fee (DIR) to gain additional profit after the sale of the drug.

“One of the areas we’ve been focused on, really since I became governor, in terms of high prices that are biting Floridians is prescription drug costs,” DeSantis said on Friday. “What can we do at a state level, even though most of this is driven by Washington. What could we do to potentially make an impact on prescription drug prices for Florida?”

“These are the same drugs that they sell in the United States, they’re just a lot cheaper because they have different policies. In the U.S., we pay basically for the rest of the world to have cheaper drugs,” DeSantis continued. “That’s because the pharmaceutical industry is very powerful, there’s a lot of different reasons for that.”

Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Simone Marstiller then added:

“For far too long leaders have chosen the path of inaction, rather than action, and fallen victim to a pharmaceutical system driven by drug companies rather than consumers,” Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Simone Marstiller added. “Fortunately, Governor DeSantis leads with principle, always putting Floridians first and today’s actions will further this commitment by providing insight into the FDA’s review process and all agency health care contracts through the end of the decade.”

The Biden FDA has kept the program awaiting approval for around 600 days. DeSantis said that the regulators told him if the program was not denied last week, approval was almost certain.

But DeSantis wants the final approval. He has infrastructure in place to begin importing FDA approved drugs at cheaper prices from Canada, he just needs Biden’s ok to do so.

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