The NC General Assembly has hit their halftime – the point each session where bills must have passed at least one side (House or Senate) in order for the legislation to be considered as a new law this session. (Now, the truth is that the requirement can be easily avoided by putting the language of a bill that didn’t pass into another bill that did, or just stick it into the budget bill, but that’s getting into the weeds.)
Among the relevant bills to us that passed were:
Legislation authorizing Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina to set-up a holding company for future acquisitions while mandating that they retain their current "non-profit" status -- it is important to note that Blue Cross NC does pay both state and federal income taxes just like a normal corporation, but its profits are not paid to shareholders, members or any other entity. While this bill was opposed by Commissioner Causey, it passed the NC House with a wide, bipartisan margin and is expected to be rushed through the Senate and signed by the Governor
A bill which would lower the threshold for self-funded (really meaning level-funded) plans to be sold to groups as small as five employees in North Carolina passed the North Carolina House last week. We have expressed our support for the legislation in concept but continue to push for the inclusion of COBRA-like continuation language for those groups with less than 20 employees.
PBM Reform Legislation passed the NC House -- largely pushed by community pharmacists, this bill would mandate higher fill fees for prescriptions and limit mandated mail order and specialty drug vendors. Our team remains concerned that this bill may be rushing the process and not giving legislation passed in last session to go into effect. Increased regulation of PBMs remains a hot topic, regardless of political party, with major legislation moving forward in politically diverse states like Florida, Texas and Colorado. There is also a bill working its way through the US Senate that would also heighten attention to PBM practices and their impact on health care costs.
Your legislative action team continues to work hard as we go into the second half -- and will watch how the budget negotiations and other issues will play out as the session begins to rush to an end.