By Jeffrey Mazzella
In recent elections, voters have made it clear that they prefer leaner government, free markets, and policies that reflect core American values that foster innovation.
In other words, precisely those principles that have solidified Florida as an economic juggernaut.
As state policymakers seek to improve healthcare affordability, they must therefore avoid overshooting with big government solutions.’ Instead, they should build upon Florida’s proven leadership that favors a competitive free market that delivers results for hardworking residents.
To be sure, American patients have been robbed for far too long by foreign governments that impose drug price controls to cash in on American innovation while undercutting U.S. pricing, with Americans footing the bill.
The proper response to foreign governments ripping off American consumers, however, isn’t to impose those same destructive policies here.
Unfortunately, HB 697 does precisely that. The answer isn't importing destructive foreign price controls; it’s enabling the U.S. free market to work without undercutting innovative life-saving new treatments and drugs.
In that regard, President Trump continues to make progress, using U.S. trade negotiations to end foreign nations' freeloading and working directly with the private sector. For example, a recent agreement achieved with the United Kingdom addresses their price controls without importing them here. President Trump is also bringing manufacturers to the table to negotiate voluntary, mutually beneficial agreements to sell certain prescription drugs direct to consumers. All told, the Trump Administration has agreed to individual deals with 15 pharmaceutical companies to date.
By enacting HB 697, Florida lawmakers would unintentionally complicate those efforts. The focus must remain on the supply chain, and allowing it to expand by avoiding counterproductive government intervention.
Effective healthcare cost savings also require addressing pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and insurers that control drug coverage and patient costs. Currently, those entities often retain rebates and discounts they secure, rather than passing savings on to patients.
As is so often the case, Florida remains at the forefront of that effort.
Florida’s own Senator Ashley Moody, for example, has become a national leader on this issue for years, particularly when it comes to holding prescription drug middlemen accountable. As Florida’s Attorney General, she joined a broad coalition of state attorneys general urging the U.S. Supreme Court to protect states’ authority to regulate PBMs. The Court agreed in a stunning victory for American families, laying the legal foundation for PBM reform nationwide.
Accordingly, in the effort to lower costs for patients, there is a more direct and impactful path forward.
To help patients access and adhere to their treatments, pharmaceutical manufacturers and independent charities actually offer assistance programs for patients. Once again, however, tactics employed by insurers and PBMs prevent those savings from reaching patients. Closing the loopholes that currently allow them to do so would deliver immediate relief to Floridians without expanding government or duplicating federal law.
America is the only nation that allows healthcare middlemen like insurers and PBMs to profit on medicines with little accountability. PBMs now take more than 50 cents of every dollar spent on brand medicines, driving up costs for patients just trying to get treatment and heal.
Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and Senator Moody’s persistence, competition-friendly pricing negotiations and PBM oversight are putting cost savings into action.
As a result, Florida lawmakers now have the advantage of working from a position of strength. Rather than importing counterproductive foreign nation price controls that would undercut federal efforts to end foreign freeloading on drug pricing, the state can focus its energy where it will have the greatest impact for patients.
HB 697 would set a dangerous precedent in a state heralded as a beacon of economic prosperity. Let’s instead empower free markets through limited government, which will ultimately benefit Florida healthcare consumers.
Jeffrey Mazzella is President of the Center for Individual Freedom, a constitutional and free-market advocacy organization with more than 300,000 supporters and activists nationwide, including several thousand in Florida.
