340B Program Key to Serving the Needy, Hospitals Tell Congress

Healthcare providers strongly endorsed the 340B program that supplies them with drugs at discount, telling members of a House committee that it’s essential for supporting outreach to underserved communities.

“I simply cannot overstate the importance of this program in enabling what we do,” Ronald Paulus, CEO of Mission Health Systems, in Asheville, North Carolina, told the Energy & Commerce Committee Wednesday at a hearing on the program.

Both Republicans and Democrats on the committee said they favor the program, which requires drugmakers to offer outpatient drugs at discounts of up to 50 percent to qualifying safety-net hospitals.