Op-Ed: Illinois Patients Need Prescription Drug Relief from 340B Bill

EVERGREEN PARK -- At a time when access to health care is increasingly uncertain for Illinois' most vulnerable residents, a critical prescription drug program that supports hundreds of thousands is under threat.

In this op-ed, Ollie Idowu, President and CEO of the Illinois Primary Health Care Association, outlines why preserving the federal 340B drug discount program is essential — and how new state legislation could protect patient care, strengthen community health centers, and ensure life-saving medications remain within reach for those who need them most:

In communities across Illinois, patient health care – particularly for those who can least afford disruptions and uncertainty – faces enormous challenges.

Debates from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, to our local communities over how to provide care to low-income families and children covered by Medicaid and other critical insurance programs, put in jeopardy the support system millions count on to stay healthy.

While these struggles have recently taken on new importance, community health centers from north of Chicago to deep southern Illinois have fought firsthand for several years in an effort to save the 340B prescription drug discount program. Our fight continues this spring, and the stakes could not be higher.

Since the early 1990s, the federal 340B program has created a win-win for our centers and the roughly 300,000 uninsured Illinoisans who they serve. The program creates steeply discounted rates for drug purchases from pharmaceutical manufacturers. Health centers pass the savings on in two important ways: uninsured patients get medications they need at affordable prices, and the centers put the payments they receive from insurers back into services and supports that are underfunded – or not funded at all.

This discount program makes it possible for our centers to do things like provide free colonoscopies and mammograms, bring mobile clinics closer to the communities where patients need care, and to pick up patients for medical appointments with free transportation.

But in recent years, pharmaceutical companies have found a dangerous loophole that they use to restrict 340B participation to one contract pharmacy, forcing patients to travel long distances to receive their needed medication. And when patients cannot receive the care they need, the centers serving them do not have the resources they need to make free transportation, mammogram and cancer screenings, and mobile clinics possible.

IPHCA is asking state legislators to pass the Illinois Patient Access to 340B Pharmacy Protection Act legislation this spring. It’s modeled after laws passed in 13 other states and growing, which have withstood challenges in federal courts.

Our aim is simple but powerful, and effective. In those other states that passed contract pharmacy protection laws, drug companies can no longer prohibit, restrict or interfere with local pharmacies who want to participate in 340B programs to support local patients and their community health centers. We can, and must, preserve a powerful lifeline that could not be more needed right now.

The proposed Illinois Patient Access to 340B Pharmacy Protection Act is Senate Bill 2385, sponsored by Sen. Dave Koehler, and House Bill 3350, sponsored by Rep. Anna Moeller. The proposal has no cost for taxpayers, a key point as financial considerations dominate health care policy discussions.

In the coming weeks, state lawmakers will debate how we shape prescription drug access and affordability and provide care to our most vulnerable communities – at a time when the future is unclear. We urge our leaders to stand with community health centers and their patients by shoring up the future of 340B protections in Illinois. We are counting on the help when so many aren’t sure what storm they will face next.

Ollie Idowu

President and CEO

Illinois Primary Health Care Association

Springfield