DeSantis Issues Executive Order On Transparency For Prescription Drug Costs

On Friday, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued an executive order to increase transparency in prescription costs for Floridians.

“Florida continues to lead the nation in ensuring accountability in the health care industry and in introducing reforms to combat rising prescriptions costs,” said DeSantis. “This executive order requires accountability and transparency for pharmaceutical middlemen when doing business with the state, thereby reducing the upward pressure on prescription drug costs.”

“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,” said Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Simone Marstiller. “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.”

In a press release, DeSantis’ office explained that the order will “ensure reforms are in place to hold Pharmacy Benefits Managers (PBMs) accountable when managing prescription drug benefits for insurance companies.”

The order will “direct all executive agencies to include provisions in all future contracts and solicitations with these PBMs,” services that include “Prohibit spread pricing for all PBMs; Prohibit reimbursement clawbacks for all PBMs; Directs agencies to include data transparency and reporting requirements, including a review of all rebates, payments, and relationships between pharmacies, insurers, and manufacturers; and Directs all impacted agencies to amend all contracts to the extent feasible with these same provisions.”

“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. “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.”