Want To Stay Up-To-Date On The Latest 340B News?
"*" indicates required fields
Posted on January 21, 2025 |
Dear President Trump and Mr. Kennedy,
As you prepare to lead our nation and plan your policy agenda, we urgently alert you to an outstanding federal program that’s under mortal attack by Big Pharma and its obedient lapdogs in Congress, even though the program doesn’t cost taxpayers a single penny.
The 340B Drug Discount Program was created by Congress in 1992 to help nonprofit healthcare providers that treat high numbers of lower-income patients stretch scarce resources. It requires the pharmaceutical industry to provide discounted medications (20 to 50 percent off) to hospitals and clinics in return for the ability to sell into the highly lucrative Medicare and Medicaid markets. The providers use the savings to fund a wide array of services including low-cost and no-cost drugs, diabetes and cancer clinics, psychiatric beds, medication management and more.
The program is funded entirely by drug companies and not taxpayers. 340B is a model of efficiency that represents a rare federal win/win: Health providers get a boost to improve care for patients and the drug industry makes untold billions in profits by participating. (Pharmaceutical companies also make a profit selling medications at the 340B discounted price.)
Against 340B is Big Pharma – the original DC Swamp Creature. The drug industry spent more than $117 million on lobbyists in 2024 and has pursued the program’s demise for the past 15 years. Why? Because they want to unilaterally change the terms of the deal they signed onto in 1992 that allows them to profit off Medicare and Medicaid in exchange for drug discounts for needy healthcare providers. Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb, Sanofi, and Novartis are the worst of these greed-mongers. They are trying to unilaterally force HHS to rewrite the law that Congress passed creating the program. HHS didn’t agree with their scheme, and now Johnson & Johnson and the four other companies are suing the agency so they can seize more money from non-profit, safety-net health providers.
President Trump, you recently spoke candidly about the drug industry, saying it has “engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation.” We agree with you. Big Pharma is out to fleece the little guy by charging through the nose whenever possible. Killing 340B is just another way to raise drug prices and generate more profits at the expense of American taxpayers.
Finally, President Trump, you have said that some of the things in Project 2025 are “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.”
We could not agree more. Perhaps the most awful of all the things in Project 2025: a recommendation to ‘restructure’ the 340B Drug Discount Program. The fact remains that after 32 years, 340B works as intended by the bi-partisan Congress that created it – to allow safety-net healthcare providers to “stretch scarce federal resources as far as possible, reaching more eligible patients and providing more comprehensive services.”
340B is a national treasure and we urge you to resist the self-interested rhetoric coming from Big Pharma and its mouthpieces. Please protect and expand this vital program that doesn’t cost taxpayers a nickel and that serves the American people just as it was intended.