WASHINGTON, DC – Since launching his first US Senate campaign in 2006, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown has accepted at least $13,000 in campaign donations from political action committees linked to pharmaceutical benefit management companies and health insurance that are now being sued by the state of Ohio. for allegedly illegally raising drug prices, according to a Spectrum News review.
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A Spectrum News review of campaign finance records shows Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, has accepted at least $13,000 in campaign donations over his career from PACs tied to insurance and pharmacy benefit management companies which are now being sued by the state of Ohio.
Brown has also received more than $37,000 from lobbyists affiliated with the companies
Brown, a member of the Senate since 2007, is running for a fourth six-year term in 2024. His campaign tells Spectrum News that Brown’s record shows repeated legislative efforts and victories to lower the cost of prescription drugs.
In addition, Brown has also raised more than $37,000 from lobbyists affiliated with the companies, records show. Lobbyists are not named in the Ohio lawsuit.
Brown, a Democratic populist running for re-election next year, frequently criticizes lobbyists affiliated with big corporations and special interest groups in hearings, testimony, interviews and committee speeches.
A review of show campaign funding records that from 2009 to 2018, Brown’s campaign arm received $13,000 from political action committees affiliated with the health insurance companies Cigna and Humana and the pharmaceutical benefits management company Express Scripts. PACs give hundreds of thousands of dollars each campaign cycle to lawmakers in both parties, according to campaign finance records compiled by the nonpartisan watchdog group OpenSecrets.
From 2006 to 2021, Brown’s political committees also received $19,920 in donations from lobbyists working for Cigna. Humana lobbyists gave $14,250 from 2007 to January of this year, and Express Scripts’ director of government affairs gave $3,500 in 2018.
Donations from both PACs and lobbyists were made to Brown’s formal campaign committee, “Friends of Sherrod Brown” or his leadership PAC, “America Works PAC.”
Together, the contributions add up to more than $50,000, a fraction of the $76 million Brown has raised since he began running for Congress in 1992, according to OpenSecrets.
In March 2023, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a lawsuit against Express Scripts and Prime Therapeutics, accusing them “of using a little-known company, based in Switzerland, to illegally raise drug prices and ultimately push those higher costs onto patients who depend on drugs they save lives like insulin.” Yost is listed as co-defendants in the suit with Cigna Group, Evernorth Health and Humana.
On March 30, days after the lawsuit was filed, Brown he mentioned the litigation during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on “Pharmacy Benefit Managers and the Prescription Drug Supply Chain: Impact on Patients and Taxpayers.”
“Earlier this week, we sued one of the mysterious group purchasing organizations (GPOs) that are owned by PBMs and used to take money out of the pockets of people who simply need their drugs. It is unacceptable that these shady entities and secrets have so much power over people’s health care,” he said.
Days later, in a statement published on April 4 When introducing a bill to lower drug costs, Brown said: “After years of fighting opposition from big pharma and politicians who always do the bidding of their lobbyists, we finally made progress with the Inflation Reduction Act. This legislation builds on these victories to hold drug companies accountable for their price gouging and lower prices at the pharmacy counter.”
And last August, he tweeted“For years we fought for Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. Big pharma lobbyists fought us every step of the way. In the #InflationReductionAct, we’re finally getting it.”
In a statement to Spectrum News, Brown campaign manager Rachel Petri said, “No one has fought harder to lower prescription drug costs for Ohioans and hold Big Pharma accountable for putting profits ahead of people than Sherrod Brown.”
Brown’s campaign noted that he helped secure a provision in the broad health and environment bill known as Inflation reduction law to help the government negotiate lower drug prices and cap the out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $35 a month for Ohioans with Medicare.
The campaign also listed several pieces of legislation Brown has introduced or sponsored to lower drug costs, including the Strengthening Medicare and Lowering Taxpayer Prices Act (SMART), the Affordable Care Act, the Stop Price Gouging and two bills signed by former President Donald Trump. in law: the Patient Right to Know Act and the Lowest Price Act.
Brown has served in Congress since 1993 and worked in Ohio state government for 16 years before that. He is seeking a fourth term in the Senate in what is expected to be the toughest race of his career. He is the only Democrat to hold a statewide non-judicial elected office in Ohio, and Republicans see his seat as an opportunity to regain control of the Senate.
So far, Republicans Matt Dolan, a state senator, and Bernie Moreno, a Cleveland businessman, have announced campaigns to take on Brown.
Dolan reported owning between $15,000 and $50,000 in Cigna stock in Financial Disclosure Report 2022while Moreno has asked that the Inflation Reduction Law be repealed.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and U.S. Representative Warren Davidson are also considering entering the race.
