Lawmakers seek to break up PBMs from health insurers, WSJ reports

A Senate bill sponsored by Democrat Elizabeth Warren and Republican Josh Hawley would force the companies that own health insurers or pharmacy-benefit managers to divest their pharmacy businesses within three years, reported The Wall Street Journal’s Liz Essley Whyte and Joseph Walker. If passed, the legislation would be the most far-reaching intervention yet into the operations of pharmacy-benefit managers, known as PBMs, and their parent companies, the report noted. The three biggest PBMs – CVS Health’s (CVS) Caremark, Cigna’s (CI) Express Scripts and UnitedHealthGroup’s (UNH) OptumRx – belong to companies owning some of the country’s largest health insurers, the report added. Other publicly traded health insurers include Centene (CNC), Elevance Health (ELV), Humana (HUM) and Molina Healthcare (MOH).