Senator Mark Johnson

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (4:03:13)

Okay. Well, I mean, seriously, I know we've changed a lot of names this session, and they're probably appropriate, but, you know, there is

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (4:03:19)

a cost to it, even if it's, you know, nominal. There's something to that. Yeah, I could not answer that question, what the

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (4:02:58)

know if there's a fiscal impact statement on this, but I was wondering if there's a forestry impact statement. How many trees are going to have to die to make the paper to reprint all this stationery?

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:37:57)

Something tells me this is not the last time we'll be dealing with these issues. Maybe not even this session. So I'm continuing to learn and to try to make educated choices. But I think I can safely say to my colleagues, this is a good bill and we should pass it and recognize that it is not perfect, nor are we through with dealing with this issue because our goal, of course, is to have fairness to our pharmacists and make sure that our people get the pharmaceuticals that they need to keep them healthy.

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:37:24)

the best answer to this but again these are primarily enforcement improvements to our existing PBM licensure act and because of PSAOs being in the mix and I'm glad to know that we did have it defined in code that they obviously are going to be referred to somewhere in this legislation But this is a good bill. It helps bring us up to where we are in 2025 on this issue.

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:36:50)

do have a definition in code it's ACA 23-92-503 says pharmacy services administrative organization means an organization that helps community pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers or third-party payers achieve administrative efficiencies including contracting and payment efficiencies and I want to I want to thank both Senator Dismang and Senator Boyd for the fact there they have bills I don't necessarily reading them think there is much competing they may be complementary and maybe a synthesis between the two might be

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:36:13)

and we we react to what certain groups and entities do i think once in and i'm probably not the only one that's done it once in committee I have referred to dealing with PBMs and some of these other entities as playing whack-a-mole. You fix one problem and they pop up with another problem. And that's what I think what Senator Stubblefield said. This is a cleanup bill. We're updating what we're saying in the law. Now, one thing I do want to do, I did actually, Senator Dismang, we

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:36:05)

thank you madam president first let me say i agree with senator dismay this is a squirrelly broken system

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:25:11)

Because this could put pharmacies in a cash flow situation

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:25:29)

know who would. Anyway. Yes, sir. I believe the

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:25:14)

if they wanted to withhold money over a period of

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:24:35)

between the PBM and the pharmacy, and now the insurance company that's managing the whole thing, but the payment, the actual how it's reimbursed, and I'm pretty sure someone like Senator Boyd, who's actually dealt with this, could tell you what the mechanism is. But whatever the mechanism is, this is a penalty for not paying on what they were owed at the proper time. And if they want to drag it out, there's enough of a penalty in there that would be a disincentive for them not to pay the money that was owed.

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:24:23)

to be required? I'm not sure of the procedure, Senator, but I would ultimately, if it were through the commission, they would be basically functioning as a collection agent. But I would think that since the business relationship exists

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:23:31)

I know that's the extreme example we talked about back last year, Senator, but this is, I'm sure, a definable thing. If the commissioner says, you paid the pharmacy, but you didn't pay them the full amount that you should have, then whatever the difference is, if you don't go ahead and pay it, there'd be a 12% penalty per month. It's a disincentive to not pay them all

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:22:28)

In other words, if the pharmacy or pharmacist didn't get paid the proper amount then the difference that if the PBM was determined by the commissioner that they did underpay and they don't remit then they would the penalty for not remitting would be 12% per month I wouldn't call it interest senator in that case I'd call

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:22:54)

it a 12% penalty although it does say 12% interest on line 11

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:22:18)

It's 12% per month. It's a penalty. It's not... I don't know if it should be called interest. It's probably just a 12% per month penalty if there was an underpayment.

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:21:26)

but it is not defined in this bill. As a matter of fact, and I'm, this is not a complaint, Senator Dismang, but too often this session, I think we've seen bills that refer to something, but the actual bill doesn't have the definition that's already in code written into the bill. This isn't one of those cases, Senator. I don't know. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Any other

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:20:50)

I definitely agree it's not well understood. But as you know,

Meeting — April 2, 2025 (3:21:21)

the law? I believe it is defined in other parts of code,