tedkennedy.org
Senator Ted Kennedy |
September 1, 2009 – Senator Ted Kennedy was a leader on many critical domestic and international issues, but improving access to health care was, in his own words, “the cause of my life.”
The 340B world knows first-hand what Kennedy meant for clinics and hospitals that serve the nation’s uninsured and underinsured patients.
In the early 1990s, the Massachusetts Democrat spearheaded Senate legislation to give federally funded heath clinics access to discounted drugs. As the bill that created the Section 340B of the Public Health Service made its way through Congress, Kennedy worked steadfastly with the safety-net community to also make hospitals eligible for the 340B discount.
“He was the author of this critical program and his support of the program didn’t end with the enactment of the 340B law,” recalled Bill von Oehsen, president of Safety Net Hospitals for Pharmaceutical Access. “He and his staff were actively engaged in the implementation of the program long after Congress passed the law, and he defended and protected 340B when there were efforts later to restrict or even repeal the program.”
Kennedy staff members regularly spoke at 340B Coalition Conferences and in 2006, the senator received the coalition’s Life-time Achievement Award.
“In Ted Kennedy, we truly lost a friend,” von Oehsen said.