Bill stops big companies from owning drug insurers and drugstores.
H.R. 8779 — PBM Act · Filed by Diana Harshbarger (R-TN) · 8 cosponsors · Introduced May 13, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
The bill says drug insurers and drugstores cannot be owned by the same company. Companies that own both must sell one part within one year. The Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice, and state attorneys general can sue. Regular people can also sue. Penalties include paying three times the damages. Companies must put profits in escrow. Companies must sell the drugstore part.
Who it affects
Patients get lower drug prices and more drugstore choices. Independent drugstores get a fairer chance to compete. Big companies that own both drug insurers and drugstores must split up.
One thing to notice
Four of the largest companies must separate. The companies are UnitedHealth, CVS Health, Cigna, and Aetna.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
8 cosponsors: 5 Democrats, 3 Republicans.
- May 13, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- May 13, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
3 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 3 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $3,842,990 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 37 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 61% of bills with any report.
Diana Harshbarger, who sponsored the bill, received $747,520 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Pharmaceutical Care Management Association — $3,282,990 in 1 report
- National Association of Chain Drug Stores — $290,000 in 1 report
- National Community Pharmacists Association — $270,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- drug insurers — Companies that decide which drugs health plans will pay for.
- sell — To give up ownership of a part of a company.
- paying three times the damages — A penalty that costs three times the money lost or harmed.
- escrow — Money held by a third party until a company follows the rules.
- state attorneys general — Top lawyers for each state who can sue on behalf of people.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (12,783 characters) on Nov 2, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,928 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-11-03.
- H.R. 8779 on Congress.gov
- Actions and status history
- Cosponsors (8)
- Bill text the analysis read
- Pharmaceutical Care Management Association — LDA filing, 2026 Q2
- National Association of Chain Drug Stores — LDA filing, 2026 Q2
- National Community Pharmacists Association — LDA filing, 2026 Q2
- Diana Harshbarger — FEC candidate receipts, 2026 cycle
“Bill stops big companies from owning drug insurers and drugstores.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr8779/simple Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.