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Alex Azar, who is the current Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary (until January 21 anyway), came out with a reboot of the proposal that effectively halts the practice of pharma manufacturers paying rebates to Part D plans. This reboot is supposed to go into effect on 1/1/2022. But this podcast is less about this may-or-may-not-actually-happen rule and is more about the actual impact of removing drug rebates within this unintuitively constructed health care system of ours.

Should rebates go away, it\u2019s actually a big deal that fundamentally could upend the heretofore-not-transparent messy middle of drug pricing. I\u2019ll let Chris Sloan, associate principal over at Avalere Health, explain. Spoiler alert: The impact of killing pharma rebates to plans and PBMs (pharmacy benefit managers)? Bottom line, everybody\u2019s insurance premiums go up in the current model when rebates go away.

A few episodes from now, I\u2019m talking with Ge Bai about why this is a suboptimal and not forgone conclusion. But this is what we\u2019ve got going on right now. So, look for EP306 coming up for more on that.

Chris Sloan, associate principal at Avalere, advises a number of clients\u2014including pharmaceutical manufacturers, health plans, providers, and patient groups\u2014on key policy issues facing the health care industry. Chris\u2019s economic analyses of key policy proposals and issues, including drug pricing and the repeal and replace efforts around the Affordable Care Act, have been featured in a wide range of publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, Axios, and Vox.