House Panel Excludes 340B User Fee from FY 2013 Funding Bill

by admin | July 23, 2012 12:38 pm

July 23, 2012—The House health appropriations subcommittee has declined to include language in its fiscal 2013 funding bill[1] for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that would authorize the collection of user fees on 340B discounted drugs. Its July 18 action came about a month after the Senate Appropriations Committee passed an HHS spending bill that would authorize the fees[2].

A 340B user fee has been an important priority for the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) for a number of years and would be used to finance its Office of Pharmacy Affairs (OPA).[ms-protect-content id=”2799″] HRSA has said that OPA would use fee revenues to address longstanding recommendations on improving program integrity and to carry out its expanded duties under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The Obama administration asked Congress[3] to approve a 0.1 percent fee on 340B drug purchases—or a penny on every $10—in its fiscal 2012 budget proposal.  It repeated the request[4] in its proposal for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The levy, also called a “cost recovery fee,” would be collected from 340B covered entities by manufacturers who would then deposit the money into an account established by HHS for use in administering 340B program operations.

Some drug manufacturers favor the fee concept but others reportedly believe that calculating and remitting them should be the covered entities’ or wholesalers’ responsibility.

Last year, the Senate Appropriation Committee passed a fiscal 2012 spending bill[5] for the departments of Labor, HHS, Education and related agencies that included the 340B user fee, but the House Appropriations Committee never passed its own version of the measure. It did, however, release a draft measure[6] that would have cut OPA’s funding for fiscal 2012 from its 2011 level of $4.48 million to $2.21 million. In December, Congress approved a $1 trillion omnibus spending bill[7] for much of the federal government that level-funded OPA at $4.48 million.

The fiscal 2013 Labor-HHS-Education spending bill that the Senate Appropriations Committee[8] passed in June would keep OPA’s appropriation at its current $4.48 million but supplement it with another $6 million from a 0.1 percent user fee on 340B drug purchases.

OPA’s line-item appropriation under the House Appropriations subcommittee bill has not been released yet. However, HRSA’s budget would be reduced by $453 million to $5.9 billion.

The measure, which the full House Appropriations Committee released in draft form prior to the subcommittee’s vote, also would prohibit HHS from using “any new discretionary funding” to implement health care reform. It is not known how the prohibition, if ultimately enacted, would affect the 340B program’s expansion under ACA or the health care law’s 340B program integrity provisions. The bill also would rescind $300 million in previous-year funding for community health centers and eliminate funding for the Title X family planning program.

The Democratic-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House are unlikely to reach a compromise on the Labor-HHS-Education spending bill in time for the beginning of the new fiscal year. Temporary funding will likely be provided for under a continuing resolution that would expire sometime after this fall’s elections. If Congress is unable to come to an agreement on the health care spending bill during its anticipated lame duck session, funding for the balance of the fiscal year probably will be provided for under a series of continuing resolutions followed by another omnibus spending measure.[/ms-protect-content]

 

Source URL: https://340bemployed.org/house-panel-excludes-340b-user-fee-from-fy-2013-funding-bill/

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