CPR’s senior project and research manager, Roz Murray, calls Jaime King, Associate Dean and Faculty Director of the UCSF/UC Hastings Consortium on Science, Law and Health Policy, to learn about current state activity to address rising pharmacy prices. There are many promising strategies that states like California, Massachusetts, and New York are putting forward, building momentum to change the tide of a significant cost driver for many health care purchasers. Jaime describes how state Medicaid agencies, as large health care purchasers, are proposing everything from closed formularies to capping annual drug spending and the legal challenges to these efforts. By knowing how to aptly use their market leverage, state Medicaid agencies are often leading the way to improving value in health care, and the battle to address rising pharmacy prices is no exception.
Aa national expert on policy strategies to address health care cost drivers, Jamie King has a lot of insights into the merits of implemented and proposed policies. With the help of CPR, Jaime King is putting her expertise to use for purchasers by collaborating with CPR on a forthcoming database of state laws and regulations governing price transparency, provider market power, provider payment, provider networks and health insurance benefit design.