Last week the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held a hearing on the 340B Drug Pricing Program to discuss its growth and impact on patients.

Among other subjects, the committee reviewed the importance of the 340B program; the pharmaceutical manufacturers’ rebate program that begins in January; potential transparency reforms; ensuring that 340B entities do not receive duplicate drug discounts; revising the definition of a patient for a covered entity; and reforms involving the use of contract pharmacies.

Representatives from the Government Accountability Office, Congressional Budget Office (CBO), UCLA served on the hearing’s witness panel.

The nation’s community safety-net hospitals view the 340B 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.

Go here to find the testimony of the witnesses and to view a video of the hearing.