Last week the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a hearing on the 340B Drug Pricing Program, which provides discounted prescription drugs to eligible health care providers, known as “covered entities,” to help them serve low-income and uninsured patients.

In recent years the 340B program has become more controversial as it has grown and as pharmaceutical companies object more strenuously to the discounts they are required to provide to participating providers.  In addition, some critics charge that the savings providers gain from 340B discounts are not consistently reinvested in care for low-income and uninsured patients while those providers insist that 340B savings are critical to their ability to serve their communities.

During the Senate hearing, both Democratic and Republican committee members expressed support for the concept underlying 340B but concern about the program’s direction and growth and an interest in looking at its problems and developing solutions.

Learn more about the hearing from the following resources:

• This video of the HELP Committee’s hearing and the testimony of the witnesses that appeared before the committee.
• Testimony presented during the hearing by the Congressional Budget Office.
• The Healthcare Dive article “Senators show bipartisan support for reforming 340B during HELP hearing.”
• The Fierce Healthcare article “Senators open to calls for greater 340B oversight, spending requirements—but remain wary of new provider burden.”
• The Politico article “Seeking a bipartisan fix for hospital drug program.”
• The Politico Pro article “Senators working toward introducing 340B reform legislation” (password required).

The Alliance of Safety-Net Hospitals and the nation’s community safety-net hospitals, all of which participate in 340B, view the program as a vital tool in supporting their ability to serve the large numbers of low-income residents of the communities they serve.  It enables them, and other providers like them, to maximize their resources when working to serve their communities, improving access to high-cost prescription drugs for low-income patients and putting additional resources into the hands of qualified providers so those providers can do more for their low-income patients:  provide more care that their patients might otherwise not be able to afford, offer more services that might otherwise be unavailable in those communities, and do more outreach into communities consisting primarily of low-income-residents.