(UPDATE: Read a timely editorial on this subject in The Hill.)
The pharmaceutical industry is again busy writing checks to friendly researchers to generate convenient data to attack the 340B program. This time the most profitable drug companies in the world are accusing hospitals of failing to provide adequate levels of charity care.
A new report charges that only 20 percent of 340B hospitals are supplying 80 percent of the charity care. The majority is supposedly free riding and building gold plated executive wash rooms.
It’s all utter hogwash.
The report is based on unreliable data that even the government decided was too weak to use to ascertain hospital uncompensated care costs. The analysis also completely omits the extent to which 340B hospitals are underpaid by Medicaid.
According to figures from the American Hospital Association, 340B hospitals provided nearly two-thirds of the $27 billion in uncompensated hospital care in the country in 2012. There are no good guys and bad guys here. To be eligible for the program hospitals must show they serve disproportionately high percentages of Medicaid, low-income seniors – or be located in remote areas.
Every 340B hospital takes heavy losses due to its safety-net mission. Big Pharma can’t change that fact.