The federal 340B Drug Pricing Program was created with a straightforward goal: help low-income and uninsured patients gain access to affordable medicines. But according to Public Policy Solutions co-founder Joe Grogan, the program has drifted far from its original mission.
In his latest Washington Examiner op-ed, Grogan explores the Trump administration’s efforts to bring greater transparency and accountability to the 340B program, which now encompasses more than $80 billion in annual discounted drug purchases. Despite the program’s explosive growth, participating hospitals generally are not required to demonstrate how the savings generated from discounted medicines are benefiting patients directly.
In his op-ed, Joe writes:
The Trump administration is considering a pilot program that could bring much-needed transparency to the 340B drug discount program, created by Congress to help hospitals and clinics serving low-income patients provide medications at discounted rates.
Under the 340B program, drug manufacturers provide medicines at steep discounts, which providers are supposed to pass on to vulnerable patients. Instead, large hospitals repeatedly take the manufacturer discount, bill patients and insurers at full price, and pocket the difference. And because the program lacks meaningful reporting requirements, hospitals generally do not have to demonstrate how those savings are spent or whether patients are directly benefiting.
Both the administration and manufacturers are looking for ways to bring 340B back to its intended purpose of helping low-income patients access medicines, but the hospital lobby has responded to transparency efforts with swift and significant opposition.
Read the full op-ed: “If 340B Is Helping Patients, Why Are Hospitals Fighting Transparency?” by Joe Grogan in the Washington Examiner.