H.268

Introduced by   Representatives Ancel of Calais, Baker of West Rutland, Chen of Mendon, Keogh of Burlington, Leriche of Hardwick, Louras of Rutland City, Maier of Middlebury, McFaun of Barre Town, Milkey of Brattleboro and Tracy of Burlington

Referred to Committee on

Date:

Subject:  Health; prescription drugs; drug utilization review board; open meetings; executive session

Statement of purpose:  This bill proposes to allow the drug utilization review board to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing proprietary pharmaceutical pricing information.

AN ACT RELATING TO DRUG UTILIZATION REVIEW BOARD OPEN MEETINGS

It is hereby enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont:

Sec. 1.  1 V.S.A. § 313(a) is amended to read:

(a)  No public body described in section 312 of this title may hold an executive session from which the public is excluded, except by the affirmative vote of two-thirds of its members present in the case of any public body of state government or of a majority of its members present in the case of any public body of a municipality or other political subdivision.  A motion to go into executive session shall indicate the nature of the business of the executive session, and no other matter may be considered in the executive session.  Such vote shall be taken in the course of an open meeting and the result of the vote recorded in the minutes.  No formal or binding action shall be taken in executive session except actions relating to the securing of real estate options under subdivision (2) of this subsection.  Minutes of an executive session need not be taken, but if they are, shall not be made public subject to section subsection 312(b) of this title.  A public body may not hold an executive session except to consider one or more of the following:

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(9)  Information relating to a pharmaceutical rebate or supplemental rebate agreement, including but not limited to pharmaceutical rebate and supplemental rebate amounts, manufacturer pricing, the content of bids received in response to requests for proposals and other contractual submissions, evaluation of such bids and other responses, and information pertaining to negotiations of such agreements, if the disclosure of the information is a trade secret pursuant to 1 V.S.A. § 317(c)(9).

Sec. 2.  33 V.S.A. § 1998(f)(2) is amended to read:

(2)  The board shall meet at least quarterly.  The board shall comply with the requirements of subchapter 2 of chapter 5 of Title 1 (open meetings) and subchapter 3 of chapter 5 of Title 1 (open records), except that the board may go into executive session as provided for in subdivision 313(a)(9) of Title 1 in order to comply with subsection 2002(c) of this title.