340B Drug Discount Program Deserves the Support of Red-State Senators

America’s rural-hospital situation is growing dire with hundreds facing the risk of closure. The 340B Drug Discount Program is central to helping them stay operational. It’s vital that lawmakers in key red states understand what’s at stake.

“Rural hospital closures, decreasing reimbursements, declining operating margins, and staffing shortages have all coalesced to undermine the delivery of care in communities whose populations are older, less healthy, and less affluent,” said the consulting group Chartis in a recent study. According to the analysis, 418 hospitals are at risk of closing.

Topping the endangered list are hospitals in red states like Arkansas, with half of its rural safety-net hospitals in danger. Mississippi and Kansas are tied with 47 percent in existential crises. These hospitals offer essential healthcare services and tend to be the largest employers in their areas. A key lifeline for these facilities is the 340B program which is under heavy attack in Washington by Big Pharma. 

Given its importance to rural America, the 340B drug discount program deserves the support of more Republican Senators with hospitals at risk. We ask Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR), John Boozman (R-AR), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Roger Marshall (R-KS) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) to take note of the benefits this program brings to their respective home states.  (Seventy-eight percent of Kansas’ rural facilities are in the red.) 340B allows their hospitals to save money on medications, helping them to stretch resources and keep their doors open. And it doesn’t cost taxpayers a penny.  

The program also deserves the support of Red-state Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of Texas (where 45 rural hospitals are in trouble – the highest number in the study) as well as Oklahoma Senators Markwayne Mullin and James Lankford (22 ailing hospitals). It’s a choice between supporting local health care providers in rural areas, or the greed of Big Pharma.  

That’s an easy choice every time.