Your prescriptions are about to get more expensive — thanks to a rule nobody asked for

Published August 17, 2026 9:00am ET



The Department of Labor (DOL) wants to help employers hold down drug costs. Instead, its latest move is likely to raise them.

A proposed rule from the department would force pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to build a second, separate compliance system, on top of one Congress already passed months earlier. PBMs negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to keep drug prices down. Unnecessarily increasing their cost of doing business like this will only pump drug prices up further.

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