AHF Optimistic About New Senate Bill to Protect 340B Program from Greedy PhRMA and Health Insurers
The new ‘SUSTAIN 340B Act’ seeks to protect nonprofit health providers from industry greed and expand the public health safety net
AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) welcomed the release of draft legislation by a bipartisan group of six U.S. Senators attempting to address drug industry and insurance attacks on the 340B program. “340B” is a federal program that allows nonprofit health care providers like rural hospitals, community clinics, and HIV/AIDS clinics to buy prescription drugs at a discount and use those savings to expand and provide more and better services to underserved Americans. Since its inception in 1992, the program has been under constant attack from drug companies and health insurers (and their henchmen, pharmacy benefits managers--PBMs) trying to take the discounts for themselves and impoverish these providers.
The new SUSTAIN 340B Act addresses several issues in the 340B program. Most importantly, it covers the primary ways PhRMA and insurers attack the program -- limiting its size, placing restrictions on provider access to the discounts, delaying payments of discounts, and insurers taking the discount by discriminatorily reimbursing 340B participants less for drugs.
