Ensuring that healthcare programs benefit the patients they are designed to help is crucial for Delaware.
The 340B Drug Pricing Program, initially created to aid underserved communities, has been found to often fall short of this goal. Instead of providing necessary discounts to Delawareans, it has become a source of significant profit for certain entities and for-profit pharmacies. This has led to increased costs for patients and disadvantaged rural hospitals struggling to compete.
Today in Delaware, there are 142 contracts between Delaware 340B entities and pharmacies nationwide, and only 50% of contract pharmacies are in medically underserved areas.
Comprehensive federal reform is needed to realign the program with its original mission of improving access to affordable healthcare for all in need. While we appreciate the intent of proponents of this bill to improve healthcare access and affordability in Delaware, unfortunately, we feel House Bill 383 is premature.
We cannot expand the federal 340B program until we can be sure the program works as originally intended – to improve access for patients in Delaware.