photo credit: Chris Rogers Facebook
Distrcit 2 Assembly member Chris Rogers advanced AB 1460 in Sacramento on May 19th, 2025.

A new state bill by a Sonoma County legislator would make it easier for health clinics to negotiate prescription drug prices. It's now one step closer to the governor’s desk.

Before he was elected to the California Assembly, Chris Rogers was mayor of Santa Rosa. He says his new bill protects health clinics and Planned Parenthood's access to a federal discount prescription drug program.

“What's been happening since the pandemic is that pharmaceutical companies have been putting arbitrary restrictions on how and who can participate and who can be utilized as a contract pharmacy in this program. That has severely limited the opportunity for folks in rural areas to participate,” said Rogers.

Rogers gives the example of a SoCal health clinic system with 30 locations, but only one is designated a contract pharmacy.

“That means that for 29 of those clinics, in order to be able to realize these discount savings, the consumers have to drive across the county and utilize that one specific pharmacy,” he explained. “So our bill removes those restrictions. It says that pharmaceutical companies cannot limit the participation of our clinics in this federal program.”

Rogers says he wants to get back to the original intent of the federal drug pricing program. He also says he faces opposition from so-called Big Pharma.

“They actually last year even spent almost twice as much money on lobbying out of any other industry in the United States,” said Rogers. “They are organized and they are well funded.”

Rogers points out his fellow state legislators see thousands of bills each year focused on what he calls highly complicated health issues.

“It's hard sometimes for them to understand the ins and outs of each of these nuanced bills. So that's been the biggest challenge for us is just educating our colleagues about the importance of this program, the impact that it is having on health systems,” said Rogers.

The bill passed the Assembly on Monday, May 19th and now heads to the State Senate. Rogers says it could really matter in his district where there are many rural health clinics.

“Our district's enormous. It goes from Santa Rosa to Oregon and it is difficult oftentimes for people to find access to health providers,” Rogers said. “So we're just doing what we can to try to keep their doors open.”