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When a hospital becomes newly eligible for what is intended to be a safety-net program, you might expect to see the hospital serving more indigent or uninsured. For example, you would expect to see the amount of charity care the hospital provides increase with the additional revenue a hospital gets from the program. But with the 340B drug pricing program, new data shows that often the opposite happens.

WASHINGTON -- The Community Oncology Alliance (COA) released a report last week on the costs of cancer treatment depending on the site of care. The report found that across various types of cancer profiles, the cost of cancer care for patients treated in the community clinic setting is about $8,000 less expensive per month than treatment in the hospital-based setting.* Looked at another way, the total cost of care for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy delivered in the hospital outpatient setting is nearly 60 percent, or $90,144, per year more expensive than the same treatment delivered in independent, community oncology practices.

While not yet in the limelight of healthcare discussions, and totally unknown to most people, the federal 340B drug discount program affects many vulnerable patients in Southwestern Illinois. Created in 1992 to help vulnerable or uninsured patients afford valuable medications by providing certain hospitals and safety net clinics with discounted medicine, the 340B program is no longer functioning as intended.

Drug Discount Program Needs Reform

Too often government programs start with a noble goal but are soon denigrated by special interests groups who use well intentioned programs for their own gain. Unfortunately, this has happened with the 340B drug discount program. Due to limited oversight, bad actors have been able to profit from this federal program, abusing the system and hurting the exact people the program was intended to help.

There are many reasons why the cost of health care is rising, including massive and unchecked federal programs that have proliferated throughout the entire health-care system. The 340B drug discount program is among those that must be examined and reined in.

340B Drug Discount Program Needs Reverted to its Original Intent