While Illinois lawmakers consider a “Health Care Availability and Access Board” (sometimes referred to as a prescription drug affordability board or PDAB), these boards are really code for government price-setting. Illinoisans should be concerned.
Government price setting won’t help patients in Illinois
While Illinois lawmakers consider a “Health Care Availability and Access Board” (sometimes referred to as a prescription drug affordability board or PDAB), these boards are really code for government price-setting. Illinoisans should be concerned.
Patients in Illinois face high health care costs and coverage barriers, but a price-setting board like the one proposed in HB 4472 is not the solution.
Here’s why:
PDABs in Maryland and Colorado are spending millions of dollars creating new bureaucratic positions and red tape — without helping one patient or saving one cent since 2019. Illinois shouldn’t be another open checkbook along the way to waste funds on misguided schemes.
Several patient groups across the country have publicly shared their concern that PDABs may reduce access to medicines. And they’ve been joined by voices across the supply chain including hospitals, insurers, and doctors. These voices expose real and unfortunate potential consequences to government price-setting and the establishment of these boards.
Patients need real leadership from everyone involved in our health care system to make it better. That’s why our companies are calling for policymakers to join us in supporting common-sense reforms to make insurance work like it was intended and help make sure patients can access and afford the medicines their doctors prescribe. For more information on the harm these boards cause and other solutions lawmakers can pursue to lower costs and increase health care access, visit PhRMA.org/States.
