With the Arizona Legislature again in session, we stay up for the chance for our leaders to proceed the nice work that has made Arizona probably the most engaging states during which to dwell and develop companies. From our sturdy and numerous financial foundations to our wonderful high quality of life, there’s good motive to be optimistic about Arizona.
All through our careers, we now have collectively fought to go laws that enables job creators to thrive and households to get pleasure from a decrease value of residing. However with the opening of the 2024 legislative session and the chance to advance considerate, common sense insurance policies, there’s a vital threat of over-regulating the free market that has introduced a lot success to our state.
![](https://azcapitoltimes.com/files/2022/04/Danny-Seiden.jpg)
One such discipline is healthcare. The governor, together with quite a lot of Republican and Democratic policymakers, have proposed a wide range of new commerce mandates, all of which in the end damage affordability and availability. Certainly one of these pointless proposals would inject extra authorities regulation into the market, making a burdensome enhance in already excessive well being care costs. The proposed plan would create drug pricing commissions, burdensome Pharmacy Profit Supervisor (PBM) regulation, and particular drug worth fixing, all of which would cut back entry and enhance prices for Arizona households and employers. In actual fact, PBM is a crucial part of the healthcare market because it negotiates the availability of pharmaceuticals for employers and their staff, with greater than 90% of employers not too long ago indicating overwhelming satisfaction with working with a PBM. Their very own.
Make no mistake: Arizona’s well being care market is already closely regulated. Proposing extra of those insurance policies has the potential to power corporations to decide on neighboring states as a substitute of Arizona. Selections about which medication to cowl, or the place to fill a prescription, are greatest left to the employer, worker, and well being plan, not the heavy-handed authorities. Extra authorities mandates and rules should not the reply.
![](https://azcapitoltimes.com/files/2024/01/Todd-Sanders.jpg)
These new proposals are harmful and take our nation within the unsuitable course. 1000’s of companies, group organizations, and nonprofits in Arizona, and even the state of Arizona, use PBM as a necessary software to fight ever-rising pharmacy and drug prices. Our organizations battle to maintain well being care prices low for workers and employers, and interfering with these non-public contracts units a harmful precedent that the federal government mustn’t settle for.
Let the free market work. Whether or not you are a Fortune 500 firm, rising a small enterprise, or a hard-working Arizonan, authorities works greatest when it focuses on defending rights and investing in infrastructure, not regulating business right into a nook. In actual fact, the Division of Labor simply introduced that it overpaid $300 million for pharmaceuticals as a result of it determined no To make use of a PBM to barter drug costs.
We stay up for a profitable 2024 legislative session and encourage lawmakers from each events to search out options that profit all Arizonans and assist our economic system develop quite than taking sides and hindering a powerful, aggressive market.
Danny Seiden is President and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Trade, and Todd Sanders is President and CEO of the Higher Phoenix Chamber.