Mark Cuban Calls on Employers to Cut the PBM Industry from Health Plans 

By Consumers for Quality Care, on October 30, 2024

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban is looking to disrupt the health care industry, particularly focused on pharmacy benefit managers’ (PBMs) outsized influence on inflated drug prices, according to Axios. 

Cuban argues that employers should tackle this issue head on. Specifically, he’s calling on corporations to bypass PBMs and negotiate directly with drug providers to get better deals for consumers. He says that this market-driven approach would increase price transparency while also lowering drug costs. “They [employers] have no idea what they’re doing with health care and so they defer to somebody who defers to somebody else,” said Cuban.  

Mark Cuban’s company, Cost Plus Drugs, engages directly with drug manufacturers, cutting out PBMs and other middlemen. Cuban argues that PBMs are not working in the best interests of the large employers who hire them to manage their company’s prescription-drug benefits. Instead, he says, PBMs are motivated to pad their bottom lines with the savings they negotiate between drug manufacturers and health insurance companies. “I’m going out there and talking to a lot of CEOs … explaining to them they’re getting ripped off,” said Cuban. 

Cuban’s Cost Plus Wellness cuts the PBM industry entirely out of health insurance plans offered to his own roughly 4,000 employees. The company pays providers cash for services and medical procedures and will soon publish its contracts with providers and pharmacies, so that other employers can use that information to shop around and get better deals on health care.    

Cuban hopes that his push for more price transparency in the health care industry will ultimately lead to “an efficient market” that is pro-consumer.  

CQC supports innovative cost-cutting measures like these, which will save patients money at the pharmacy counter. PBMs, if left unchecked, will continue using anticompetitive business practices that drive up costs, limit consumers’ access to drugs, and force independent pharmacies to shut their doors. CQC urges lawmakers and regulators to continue scrutinizing PBMs and ensure access to high-quality affordable care for all consumers.