Council urges Congress to reform 340B program

Lawmakers can lower health care costs by restoring the 340B drug pricing program to its original intent.

WASHINGTON, DC – In a written statement to the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, the American Benefits Council called on Congress to reform the 340B drug pricing program to ensure it works as intended instead of driving up costs for employers and working families. The Council’s statement was submitted in conjunction with the October 23 hearing, “The 340B Program: Examining Its Growth and Impact on Patients.”

“Employers are deeply concerned about the explosive growth of the 340B program and the significant cost it has imposed on employer-sponsored health plans,” said Ilyse Schuman, the Council’s senior vice president, health and paid leave policy.

Earlier this year, the Council issued a research paper explaining how employers, working families and taxpayers are shouldering a significant cost of the 340B drug pricing program’s expansion, while the program is failing to sufficiently benefit the vulnerable patients it was intended to serve. The Council’s findings and the need for reform of the program have since been supported by subsequent reports by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-LA).

“The 340B program was originally designed to help low-income patients more easily afford prescription drug medicines,” Schuman said. “Unfortunately, the program has veered far from this mission, with health systems using the program in profit-driven ways – raising costs for employers and working families by fueling hospital-physician consolidation, affecting discounts in the commercial market and promoting increased use of higher-cost therapies.”

By offering health coverage to more than 180 million Americans, employers are a key stakeholder in legislative efforts to amend the 340B program. “We strongly support comprehensive reform of the program to ensure it is helping vulnerable patients in underserved communities without raising costs for millions of Americans with employer-sponsored health coverage,” Schuman said.  “This hearing is another important step in identifying and addressing those reforms of the 340B program. We look forward to working with Congress on these much-needed reforms.”

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