January 30, 2013—Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who has championed health care safety-net issues as the chairman of two important Senate committees, has decided not to seek reelection in 2014.
Senator Harkin, 73, announced his decision on Jan. 26, explaining that after serving 40 years in Congress in both the House and Senate, “I just feel it’s someone else’s turn.”[ms-protect-content id=”2799”] For the next two years, he will continue to wield considerable influence over federal health care policy as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee and the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. The HELP panel has jurisdiction over the 340B drug discount program and the Labor-HHS-Education panel sets funding for the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which administers the 340B program.
Senator Harkin became chairman of the HELP Committee in the fall of 2009 following the death of its longtime leader Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). He played a critical role in the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010. The first of two health care reform bills that President Obama signed into law that month extended 340B discounts to inpatient drugs, added rural and free-standing cancer hospitals to the program, and included provisions to bolster program accountability. A few days later, the President signed a related budget reconciliation bill that that struck the inpatient extension language from ACA and limited the newly eligible hospitals’ access to 340B pricing on orphan drugs while retaining the other elements.
Harkin has been a co-sponsor of freestanding Senate legislation to extend 340B to the inpatient setting. He also has written in support of a proposed HRSA regulation that would allow rural and cancer hospitals to obtain 340B pricing on orphan drugs when the drugs are used for diseases or conditions other than those for which the drugs received their orphan designations.
As chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee, Senator Harkin has on numerous occasions included language in the reports that accompany spending bills addressing 340B covered entity concerns on issues including the 340B definition of patient, declining third-party reimbursement, and 340B program oversight. In recent years, the Labor-HHS-Education panel has approved appropriations bills that would begin funding HRSA’s Office of Pharmacy Affairs (OPA) through user fees on 340B drug purchases.
Senator Harkin’s retirement announcement came on the heels of that of Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a staunch supporter of Medicaid and affordable prescription drugs. Senator Rockefeller also has decided not to seek re-election in 2014.
Another Senate champion of the 340B program, Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), retired from the chamber when the last session Congress ended early this month. On the House side, 340B champion Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) is retiring from office next month.[/ms-protect-content]