Guest Author
A recent article from The Wall Street Journal detailed how unethical hospital systems and Pharmacy Benefit Managers collude to prioritize profits over patients.
Congress needs to end these and other practices that allow for constant abuse of patients and impede access.
Stories of patients receiving eye-popping hospital bills for even the most routine care are a cliché at this point in American culture. While programs like 340B are intended to help low-income patients access the hospital care they need, the program has become rife with abuse from large hospitals and pharmacy benefit managers.
Hopefully, Congress will reform this program to ensure it aligns with its original purpose of assisting patients.
On top of reforming 340B, if lawmakers truly want to help improve access for patients in our state, they will also make critical reforms to the potentially destructive provision in the Inflation Reduction Act, like the pill penalty.
Unfortunately, the pill penalty in the IRA penalizes drug companies for developing pills as opposed to IVs and transfusions by shortening the amount of time before these pill forms of drugs are up for negotiation.
Congress must pass the EPIC Act to fix the pill penalty and ensure patients can access new, innovative treatments.
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Pam Benzing is a retired nurse residing in Sun City Center with her husband, Frank.
