December 10, 2014—House and Senate appropriators agreed yesterday on a $1.1 trillion fiscal 2015 federal spending bill with report language about the 340B program. Congress has yet to vote on the measure.[ms-protect-content id=”2799″]
The “explanatory statement” about the bill submitted by House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers of Kentucky:
- Directs the Health Resources and Services Administration to brief the House and Senate Appropriations Committees by March 3 about its progress toward making 340B ceiling prices available to covered entities through a secure website.
- Says the 340B program “should examine its ability to ensure patients’ access to 340B savings for outpatient drugs.”
- Directs HRSA “to work with covered entities to better understand the way these entities support direct patient benefits from 340B discounted sales.”
“HRSA is required to make 340B ceiling prices available to covered entities through a secure Web site,” the report’s passage about 340B reads. “Funding was provided in fiscal year 2014 to implement such requirements, including the creation of a Web site. HRSA is directed to provide a briefing to update the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on implementation by March 3, 2015.”
“There are concerns that HRSA has been unable to demonstrate that the 340B program benefits the most vulnerable patients,” the report continues. “In order to best serve the public need, the program should examine its ability to ensure patients’ access to 340B savings for outpatient drugs. HRSA is directed to work with covered entities to better understand the way these entities support direct patient benefits from 340B discounted sales.”
The 340B report language represents a compromise between House and Senate appropriators. Last July, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education included language in the report accompanying a draft appropriations bill reaffirming its commitment to ceiling price transparency and restating its position that “more than an individual discount program, the 340B program was designed to help safety net providers maintain, improve, and expand patient access to healthcare services generally.”
In a related development yesterday, the chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee asked a witness during a hearing if it was “time for a complete re-evaluation of the 340B program.”
The appropriations bill would level-fund HRSA’s Office of Pharmacy Affairs at $10.2 million. It makes no provision for additional OPA funding through covered entity user fees.[/ms-protect-content]