August 9, 2013—More than 100 members of Congress (84 representatives and 29 senators) have signed letters to leaders of their respective chambers expressing their “bipartisan support” for the 340B drug discount program.[ms-protect-content id=”2799″]
In Aug. 2 letters to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) (House version) and to Senate HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Ranking Member Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) (Senate version), the lawmakers say the program “helps to reduce pharmaceutical costs for hundreds of hospitals that serve many low-income residents of our states.” Elsewhere in their letters, they say that 340B savings enable hospitals “to expand health care services to the community, increase the number of patients they serve, or offset losses from uncompensated care.”
The Senate version of the letter states that “given the significant economic pressures on these safety net providers, any threat to these savings means that these community-based programs are at great risk.”
The House members closed their letter by saying: “On behalf of the millions of our neighbors who rely upon safety net providers, we urge you to resist any legislative efforts to change the law’s mission—to help safety net providers ‘stretch scarce Federal resources as far as possible, reaching more eligible patients and providing more comprehensive services.'”
The signers of the Senate letter, meanwhile, closed by pledging to work with the HELP Committee “to improve the program” and to ensure that it “continues to serve the needs of safety net entities and their patients.”
The Congressional demonstration of support for 340B occurs against a backdrop of sustained activity by drug manufacturers, independent oncologists, and others to portray 340B as “broken.” Also, the letters came just days after Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) wrote to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to express disappointment with its 340B orphan drug exclusion final regulation and after Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote to Walgreens seeking information about its involvement in 340B as a provider of contract pharmacy services.[/ms-protect-content]