{"id":198209,"date":"2026-04-15T16:13:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T16:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/198209\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T16:13:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T16:13:25","slug":"op-ed-state-senates-drug-discount-plan-leaves-the-poorest-patients-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/198209\/","title":{"rendered":"Op-Ed | State Senate\u2019s drug discount plan leaves the poorest patients behind"},"content":{"rendered":"

As federal Medicaid dollars\u00a0tighten<\/a> and the cost of living continues to squeeze countless families, there\u2019s never been a more critical time for policymakers in Albany to fight for affordable access to healthcare for those who need it most.<\/p>\n

For countless New Yorkers, that means making sure the federal 340B Drug Discount Program works the way it was intended by helping safety-net hospitals\u00a0deliver discounted prescription drugs to\u00a0low-income patients.<\/p>\n

But instead of strengthening 340B\u2019s ability to help New York\u2019s most vulnerable, new language in the State Senate\u2019s budget proposal threatens to not only deepen\u00a0existing flaws in the program<\/a> by failing to close the loopholes large hospitals and chain pharmacies have used to exploit it, but do so without adding any new transparency measures or safeguards to ensure 340B funds are even reaching the communities where they would do the most good.<\/p>\n

To illustrate the issue, data suggests a troubling and significant disconnect between where 340B funds are spent and where they are actually needed as just 29% are located in ZIP codes below the state median income level.<\/p>\n

Rather than prioritizing low-income New Yorkers \u2014 many of whom already face pharmacy closures \u2014 many large hospital systems have instead leveraged the program\u2019s financial incentives to consolidate a market already starved of competition. From 2016 to 2022, 75% of organizations acquired by major hospital systems were 340B facilities, allowing hospitals to generate profits from the program while not doing their fair share.<\/p>\n

The costs of this consolidation are telling. From 2014 to 2022, 340B hospitals saw their assets rise by 38%, yet charity care \u2013 the same metric used to justify these discounts \u2013 fell by 29%. Fast forward to today, and you will find that 85% of these hospitals provide charity care at rates\u00a0below<\/a> the national average. As a result, government health plans in New York have bled $89 million annually in recent years.<\/p>\n

And when it comes to cancer care, patients are paying even more. A detailed study by the American Cancer Society concluded \u201cthe financial incentives associated with 340B directly impact what a cancer patient pays for their care \u2013 the higher the cost of the drug used, the greater the amount cancer patients pay in cost sharing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, as 340B facilities continue concentrating in large urban centers, healthcare for low-income patients is pushed into higher-cost hospital settings \u2013 worsening access for patients in pharmacy deserts as well.<\/p>\n

Lastly, because of a lack of reporting requirements, it is nearly impossible to track exactly how much a hospital saves through 340B or, more importantly, whether those savings are actually being passed down to lower a patient\u2019s out-of-pocket costs.<\/p>\n

But the status quo does not have to dictate how we serve the most overlooked New Yorkers, nor does the potentially devastating budget language from the State Senate. To that end, for a viable path forward the Senate should focus on legislation to increase accountability around 340B funds and mandate transparency to ensure contract pharmacy arrangements benefit the local community. We need clear data to ensure that these discounts aren\u2019t just padding hospital profits or funding the next big merger, but are instead being reinvested into better, more affordable care for patients.<\/p>\n

The 340B program was meant to expand access to affordable care \u2013 not fuel opacity and hospital consolidation. Albany should reject the Senate\u2019s flawed budget proposal, demand accountability from large hospital networks, and fight for reforms that put low-income communities back at the center of 340B\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n

Marcia K. Horn is president and CEO of the International Cancer Advocacy Network, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that helps late-stage cancer patients find clinical trials and second opinions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As federal Medicaid dollars\u00a0tighten and the cost of living continues to squeeze countless families, there\u2019s never been a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[78975,78976,78977,62639,78978,77974,78979,77977,78980,16846,9,11,78981,10,49,51,50,78982,78983,50556,42344],"class_list":{"0":"post-198209","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-340b-drug-discount-program","9":"tag-albany-state-budget","10":"tag-cancer-care-costs","11":"tag-charity-care","12":"tag-contract-pharmacies","13":"tag-healthcare-affordability","14":"tag-healthcare-transparency","15":"tag-hospital-consolidation","16":"tag-low-income-communities","17":"tag-medicaid-funding","18":"tag-new-york","19":"tag-new-york-headlines","20":"tag-new-york-healthcare-policy","21":"tag-new-york-news","22":"tag-new-york-state","23":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","24":"tag-new-york-state-news","25":"tag-pharmacy-deserts","26":"tag-prescription-drug-pricing","27":"tag-public-health-policy","28":"tag-safety-net-hospitals"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}