Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger has set her sights on a number of health-related, cost saving measures leading up to Virginia’s 2026 legislative session. And elected officials from both parties are working on efforts to earn her signature.
Fairfax Democratic Delegate Karrie Delaney wants a new state board to negotiate down the prices of several commonly used drugs.
“The bottom line remains the same: medicine can’t do its job if you can’t afford it,” Delaney told the press Tuesday morning.
She's bringing back her Prescription Drug Affordability Board, or PDAB, bill again in 2026; three years since it was first introduced. It has bipartisan support now, as it did then, including from Southside Republican Senator Bill Stanley.
But Maryland and Colorado passed PDAB efforts years ago, and they've have faced criticisms for failing to accomplish much at the cost of millions in state funding.
But Delaney said her bill was written with lessons learned from other states’ failures: “No other state has approached [a] Prescription Drug Affordability Board the way that this piece of legislation has, and so I think by really mirroring that language of what's already working at the federal level to start us out here in Virginia is going to put us in a really strong position.”
Brunswick Republican Delegate Otto Wachsmann shares concerns about PDABs in other states.
“To me, the PDAB is sexy; it sounds like it's going to work. Nobody can explain to me how it works,” he told Radio IQ Tuesday.
Instead, he’s working on a bill targeting Pharmacy Benefit Managers — prescription middlemen that Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger specifically mentioned in her legislative priorities.
Delaney said she’s workshopped her bill with the incoming administration and she’s feeling good about it. Her last attempt was vetoed by outgoing Governor Glenn Youngkin.
Wachsmann’s bill isn’t live yet, but he’s hoping to find bipartisan support ahead of the session that starts Wednesday.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
