Investor’s Business Daily Publishes Our Defense of 340B

by Admin | October 22, 2013 2:14 pm

Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) recently published a diatribe against 340B hospitals and the 340B program by Sally C. Pipes, who heads the “think tank” Pacific Research Institute.

Among other fulminations, Pipes said 340B

• is an “ungainly operation fattening the bottom lines of pharmacies and hospitals,”
• “fails to actually help vulnerable patients,” and
• “represents an unholy alliance between moneyed interests and public regulators.”

We reached out to the newspaper, which caters to individual investors, about publishing a counterpoint from SNHPA President and Chief Executive Officer Ted Slafsky, and IBD graciously agreed. You can read Slafsky’s complete essay on here[1] on Investor’s.com[2].

Here’s the full text:

It’s hard to know where to begin to respond to Sally C. Pipes’ op-ed about the 340B drug discount program because it has so many mistakes, half-truths and exaggerations (“Health Care Program Has Become an Arbitrage Operation,” Aug. 29, 2013).

She is either badly misinformed or on a misguided mission to tear down 340B — a valuable program that reduces costs for patients and taxpayers.

First, a disclosure: I am president and chief executive officer for Safety Net Hospitals for Pharmaceutical Access, an organization that represents nearly 1,000 hospitals enrolled in the 340B drug discount program.

It would have been nice, not to mention transparent, if Pipes had similarly disclosed her ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

Her essay has all the hallmarks of being part of the campaign to undermine 340B by some of the most highly profitable drug companies in the world and other well-financed special interests.

Congress created the 340B program in 1992 with bipartisan support. It gives hospitals and other health care providers that serve a disproportionate share of low-income patients relief from high prescription drug costs.

It was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush and has been expanded since that time by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. Hospitals use their savings to stretch scarce resources, serve more patients and improve services.

Here’s how it works: The hospitals that qualify for the program have to be an (a) public or (b) nonprofit facility with a very high percentage of low-income patients and persons with disabilities.

Some qualify because they are geographically remote. The government tracks participating hospitals’ percentage of low-income patients. If the percentage falls below a certain level, the hospital is out.

Thanks to the 340B program, poor and vulnerable patients have been able to get access to free or low-cost medications to treat conditions such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

As result, these patients can live healthy lives and avoid expensive care in an emergency room or spend days in a hospital bed. Taxpayers benefit since providers share or pass on their savings to the Medicaid program.

Hospitals and clinics generate savings by charging insurance companies at rates negotiated by the two parties.

This is what Congress planned when it created 340B. This is exactly how the program ran for nearly 20 years with nary a complaint from drug companies.

The industry began calling this “abuse” only after Congress passed laws to expand eligibility to new categories of hospitals and the secretary of Health and Human Services issued guidelines making it easier for patients to access their medicines close to home.

“340B now represents an unholy alliance between moneyed interests and public regulators,” Pipes writes.

Safety-net hospitals are “moneyed interests”? Since when?

Try telling that to the rural hospital that was on the verge of closing but stabilized its finances after enrolling in 340B. It can now offer chemotherapy locally, saving cancer patients from having to travel 150 miles or more for treatment.

Try telling that to inner-city hospitals that use 340B savings to coordinate care for the uninsured and help patients manage their medicines better, which reduces health care spending and improves patient outcomes.

This is what Congress had in mind when it enabled hospitals to save money through 340B and told them to use their savings to stretch their other dollars, serve more patients, and improve the quality of their care.

Pipes and other critics of the 340B program have every right to speak out about what they perceive to be misuse.

My organization, Safety Net Hospitals for Pharmaceutical Access, is ready to work with both friends and foes of 340B.

Collaboration is tough, however, when critics do little more than malign the program and the hospitals in it.

Source URL: https://340binformed.org/2013/10/investors-business-daily-publishes-our-defense-of-340b/

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