Written by Ed Towns and Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.
NNPA Newswire — Congressman Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the House, will work in a bipartisan manner with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and U.S. Senators John Thune (R.S.D.) and Debbie Stabenow. I had the opportunity to follow the lead of a group of six people: (D-Michigan), Shelley Moore Capito (R-Virginia), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin), Jerry Moran (R-Kansas); Four people formed a bipartisan party, including Ben Cardin (Democratic Party of Maryland). The partisan task force recommended a solution that provides stability and adequate transparency to ensure that the 340B program continues to achieve its original purpose of supporting entities serving eligible patients. The purpose is to find. Recently, Senate Support Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) released a report that calls into question many of the practices seen today in the nonprofit hospital industry. The report notes that nonprofit hospitals can play an important role in providing needed care to Americans while fulfilling their charity care obligations. In fact, it is quite common to find that some of these hospitals do not offer these discounts to their corresponding patients.
Ed Towns
It takes decades to accomplish anything big in Washington, DC. Local politicians hate to admit it, but this is true in the complex field of health policy. When I first became a member of Congress in the early 1980s, I worked with Ben Chavis on health care issues. For example, there was no prescription drug benefit for seniors. When I left this House 10 years ago, older people had access to life-saving medicines, but the government had no power to negotiate prices with manufacturers. The Biden administration last week announced the first steps toward beginning Medicare negotiations made possible by the Inflation Control Act. Much more can be done, and Congress has an obligation to do more to ensure everyone has access to affordable prescription drugs. Back in the early 1990s, Congress passed a law known as “340B” (with my support) to do just that. Pharmaceutical companies are required by law to provide medicines at deeply discounted prices to charitable hospitals and pharmacies, and these medical centers provide free or near-free medicines to local patients (regardless of their ability to pay). It is based on the idea of being able to provide. .
Believe it or not, Congress is still trying to make the 340B program work 30 years later. Today’s hospitals rarely face problems alone. These are typically part of a broader corporate-owned network of medical facilities in areas ranging from poor to wealthy, urban to rural. If one hospital could get his 340B drug at a discount, this wouldn’t be a problem. The beneficiaries are local patients. But that’s not how the hospital network uses his 340B. As we saw recently in Richmond, Virginia, hospital networks are willing to use branches in poorer areas to get 340 billion drugs into the pipeline, but then distribute these drugs throughout the hospital network. Reroute and sell at full price to patients of all incomes. level. As someone who originally voted for 340B, I can tell you this was not Congress’ intent. We wanted to help pharmaceutical companies make medicines available at affordable prices to patients who need them. It was never our intention for hospital networks to profit from using sophisticated redirection strategies.
Perhaps that’s why a bipartisan group of U.S. senators recently requested information from stakeholders about how the 340B program is working. I was pleased to see so many traditional civil rights and other health leaders weighing in on these and raising health disparities as an important civil rights issue. We are proud to support the Reverend Al Sharpton, Delegate Kathy Tran, Virginia House of Delegates, Linda Gawler Brandt, Imperative on Black Women’s Health, Kevin Kimble, Southern I applaud the leaders of the Christian Leadership Global Policy Initiative, Bishop Dean Nelson, the Frederick Douglass Foundation, and others. We appreciate their advocacy on this issue. We want to improve her 340B program Democrats and Republicans agree that this program should work as Congress intended. The Biden administration should ensure that hospitals and other organizations use savings from the 340B program to help the patients they deserve. Amending 340B is the next step in ensuring health equity when it comes to prescription drugs.
(Ed Towns is a civil rights activist, former congressman from New York, and member of the Congressional Black Caucus.) Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. is currently the CEO and president of the National Association of Newspaper Publishers. ing.)
