Sponsored by Sens. Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren, the legislation would require companies owning health insurers or PBMs to divest their pharmacy businesses|Gage Skidmore|CC BY-SA 2.0

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill to dismantle pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). Sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley, the legislation would require companies owning health insurers or PBMs to divest their pharmacy businesses.

PBMs are intermediaries between pharmacies, insurance companies, drug manufacturers, and other payers.

If passed, companies like CVS Health. UnitedHealth Group and Cigna would have to break their pharmacies in three years. The bill would be the most significant intervention yet into PBM operations, limiting a key revenue stream for these companies and addressing patient frustrations.

Hawley said the legislation “will stop the insurance companies and PBMs from gobbling up even more of American healthcare and charging American families more and more for less.”