Spurred by fed-up consumers, states are trying to curb spiraling prescription drug costs by assembling special public boards to investigate and regulate pricing. The idea is similar to a local utility board: a public group that sets rules or makes recommendations to ensure that what they’re regulating — in this case, prescription medications — is affordable. Some state laws have authorized these watchdogs to regulate drug prices for certain groups of people, such as state employees or those with Medicaid plans.
Legislatures in a few states — Colorado, Minnesota and Washington — granted boards broader power to oversee drug prices for everyone in the state. Over the past five years, have created prescription drug affordability boards, and the model is picking up steam nationwide. Just this year, proposed legislation to assemble their own boards.
The boards’ duties vary from state to state, but they’re usually with identifying medicines that could be considered unaffordable for most patients, finding ways that state health plans or Medicaid programs can reduce drug spending, and, in some cases, capping the amount of money that insurers have to pay for prescription drugs. “Drug pricing is an extremely complex system, and you need experts in the space that understand how everything works,” said Andrew York, executive director of Maryland’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board. “Every state is proposing different laws and regulations to make prescription drug.