Don’t Sell Out Rural Health Care Providers to Big Pharma

President Trump has launched the TrumpRx website with much fanfare, demonstrating a commitment to lowering medicine prices for Americans. But simultaneously, his administration is helping powerful pharmaceutical companies undermine the 340B Drug Discount Program, threatening to undo the very progress the president seeks to achieve.

340B helps America’s safety-net hospitals—especially those in rural areas—treat underserved patients. Simply put, savings from the program help providers pay for essential services and fund low-cost/no-cost drugs for people in need. This program is a lifeline for access to health care in America’s heartland. A bipartisan Congress created the program in 1992. Under the deal, drug companies provide discounted medications to safety-net hospitals and clinics in return for the right to sell into the highly lucrative Medicare and Medicaid markets. 340B has worked as designed for 34 years.

Yet, while President Trump has touted deals with Big Pharma execs for savings at the White House, his Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr. has apparently worked with drugmakers behind the scenes to weaken and ultimately destroy 340B.

The White House and HHS appear to be at cross purposes on drug prices, and the stakes for rural health care could not be higher.

In early February, the Health Resources and Services Administration quietly filed paperwork to create rules for a new 340B rebate model that would turn the program on its head and put drugmakers in charge. Rather than up-front discounts to safety-net providers, Big Pharma would be in control of granting or denying rebates after a drug has been dispensed. This is like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. The 340B program and the rural hospitals it sustains won’t last long under this new regime.

Big Pharma wants 340B dead so it can fatten already bulging bottom lines. The drug industry is giving a little on TrumpRx and getting a massive payback with 340B rebates.

President Trump, your initiative to try to lower drugs costs for Americans with TrumpRx is admirable. But to truly protect America’s most vulnerable patients and the rural health care providers who serve them, you must also defend 340B. Don't let Kennedy sell out rural health care providers to line the pockets of Big Pharma.