Posted on 02/27/2021 4:20:20 AM PST by Kaslin
In a hearing on Tuesday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra revealed just how unfit he is to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Becerra dismissed the need to reform the federal "340B" program, even though it has morphed from a good-faith effort to help low-income Americans access medicines into a cash cow for the nation's largest hospitals and pharmacies.
This mindset is deeply concerning.
The 340B program was designed with the best of intentions. Back in 1992, worried about uninsured Americans struggling to secure prescription medicines, Congress created a program requiring drug companies to extend generous discounts -- typically 20 to 50 percent -- to hospitals and clinics serving low-income patients.
In theory, the program enabled safety-net providers to offer innovative therapies to patients deserving of charity. But providers quickly realized that the program could be gamed. So many began purchasing medicines at discount prices, selling them to those who had insurance and could afford full fare, and pocketing the difference.
They're getting away with it because of 340B's lax design. Providers need not prove they're giving discounted drugs to the low-income patients for whom they're intended. They simply have to show they're one of the 16 types of eligible providers -- from small, rural hospitals, to general hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of low-income individuals, to federally qualified health centers.
In recent years, participating entities have kicked their scheme into overdrive by contracting third-party, for-profit pharmacies. Today, more than 12,000 entities across more than 38,000 sites participate in the 340B program. Nearly half of the U.S. pharmacy industry reaps profits from it.
According to a recent study by the Berkeley Research Group, the average margin on 340B prescriptions filled by third-party pharmacies is 72 percent -- roughly three times the margin for a non-340B drug. In 2018 alone, this translated into $13 billion in profits for providers and pharmacies around the country -- with chain pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS pocketing more than half of those profits.
The Government Accountability Office recently reviewed 55 340B providers and found that 25 offered no discounts whatsoever at their contract pharmacies. In other words, 340B has become a major profit center for some of the largest, most powerful healthcare interests.
Unfortunately, like many government-mandated programs, 340B suffers from a fundamental disconnect between its stated aims and actual outcomes. Absent sufficient oversight, transparency requirements, and accountability mechanisms, for-profit entities exploited the program from the jump. And as 340B continues to grow outside of its original scope, the intended beneficiaries -- true safety-net hospitals and vulnerable patients -- have been left behind.
Preventing such blatant abuse of the healthcare safety net shouldn't be a partisan issue. After all, millions of Americans have been priced out of the health insurance market. Roughly half of patients in either fair or poor health are having trouble affording their medications.
Given these challenges, allowing healthcare providers and pharmacies to exploit a program designed to help less well-off patients access care isn't just wasteful -- it's wrong. The program urgently needs reform.
“Back in 1992, worried about uninsured Americans struggling to secure prescription medicines, Congress created a program requiring drug companies to extend generous discounts.”
Almost certainly signed into law by Bush Sr. Another ‘gift’ to the country from our GOP establishment.
Possibly “one of the 16 types of eligible providers” is a friend of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
Because there is, of course, some new meaning of “federally qualified health centers.”
Ask California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, to list in detail for California, each and every one of the “federally qualified health centers.”
Trump would have signed onto something like this also. He was hardly fiscally conservative. We haven’t had a fiscally conservative president since Reagan.
…. like many government-mandated programs, 340B suffers from a fundamental disconnect between its stated aims and actual outcomes. Absent sufficient oversight, transparency requirements, and accountability mechanisms
Best Gomer Pyle voice… Surprise, Surprise, Surprise
Bet Bush didn’t read the entire bill before he signed it. He like Buyden he was told what was in it. Unlike Buyden, he understood the words being spoken to him.
It is tiresome to hear and read time and again the same bs that some law or regulation promoted by leftists was done with the “best intentions” .... boo hoo hoo. AND ALWAYS the leftist bs results in failure, and always always no penalty to the perpetrators of the lie. If there were the “best intentions”, it also would have intended to “protect the [middle class] taxpayers”.
The govt. is then sending it to distribution centers, in my case, a local civic center and it's being handled by a local hospital and Walgreen pharmacy.
Walgreen will then charge Medicare for administering the vaccine, how much I don't know but it's apparent that the govt. is paying out twice and the hospital and Walgreens are making out like bandits.....
“...Absent sufficient oversight, transparency requirements, and accountability mechanisms...”
Yepp Judge, ... those are dog whistle code words used by the grifters to get more money to “fix” the problem.
My solution is easier to get results - 12 months for all interested parties to fix it or the law sunsets forever. My solution is impossible to get through the grifters in Congress.
Wait - so a legislated coercive market distortion is being gamed to the financial advantage of powerful entities? At the expense of individual citizens? Wow, this must be the first time this has ever happened. I’m sure it’s a one-off. Let’s keep those market interventions coming.
The government is buying the vaccine for approx. $39 for the two doses, providing it for free to the states who are distributing it to medical centers and pharmacies like Walgreens for free and they in turn are administering the shots and charging Medicare the above prices.........
What a scam!
Yep! You are paying for the bullet for them to shoot you with.
“Trump would have signed onto something like this also. He was hardly fiscally conservative. We haven’t had a fiscally conservative president since Reagan.”
Pretty much true, but sadly, it wasn’t Trump’s problem, it’s the fact that 90% of Americans sent their kids to public schools and Trump had to answer to what they demanded - which was HANDOUTS, whether that be welfare for the lower classes, or Social Security/Medicare for the middle classes (and pretty much everyone else, including most people here).
Without Trump giving into their demands, he wouldn’t have stood a chance, in either election.
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we haven't had a fiscally conservative president since WJC signed newt gingritch’s “contract with America” & balanced the budget, added line item veto, middle class tax relief & term limits.....the success of which bubba took credit for
And they charge the admin fee because Walgreens CVS or medical center has to pay someone to inject the vaccine. Its overhead cost
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