Legislative Recap: Healthcare Freedom and Healthier Tennessee Families

Tennessee families are paying more for prescriptions, waiting longer for care, and facing a system rigged in favor of the largest middlemen. This session, the General Assembly took targeted, system-focused action to fix it.

The FAIR Rx Act, HB 1959, is the most significant pharmacy reform Tennessee has passed in a generation. The Freedom, Access, and Integrity in Registered Pharmacy Act prohibits a single company from owning both a pharmacy and a pharmacy benefits manager, or both a pharmacy and a health insurer. Beginning July 1, 2028, these conflicts of interest end. Independent and unaffiliated pharmacies can offer mail-order, specialty, and delivery services. Hospital pharmacies are not restricted. But the vertical integration that has crushed independent pharmacies and hidden drug pricing from patients comes to an end. Violations carry civil penalties of up to $10,000 per day per violation.

I was proud to draft and co-sponsor the SHIELD Act, HB 2243, which protects medical freedom by ensuring providers are not penalized for treating patients who decline vaccinations. Patients should make medical decisions in consultation with the doctor of their choice, not under threat from health systems and bureaucrats who treat informed consent as an inconvenience.

HB 2136 ensures quicker access to new FDA-approved medications. HB 1956 expands step therapy protections to all cancer patients. HB 819 eliminates Certificate of Need requirements for acute care hospitals, emergency rooms, and cardiac catheterization labs, opening the door to real competition. HB 2278 terminates Certificates of Public Advantage, ending a regulatory framework that has protected market dominance at the expense of patients.

We also approved the Helping Open Pathways to Effective Treatment Act, the HOPE Treatment Act, allowing Tennessee research institutions to participate in federally authorized clinical trials studying ibogaine as a potential treatment for PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and opioid addiction. Tennessee is home to tens of thousands of veterans, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation estimates approximately 70,000 Tennesseans struggle with opioid addiction. If a federally authorized treatment offers hope, our research institutions should not be locked out of the work.

The legislature also banned kratom, also known as gas station heroin, with HB 1649. We directed $205 million to utilize Shared Savings for health care initiatives, including funding Rural Health Transformation Resiliency Grants, and provided $230 million to TennCare to cover increasing costs associated with medical inflation.

Health care freedom is not a slogan. It is the principle that you, your family, and your doctor, not government and not corporate middlemen, should make the decisions that affect your body and your life, free from coercion, pressure, or manipulation.