#NNPA BlackPress

OP-ED: Safeguarding Charitable Medicines Programs in America

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The definition of a “charitable hospital” was never well-defined in law, and today 57% of all hospitals participate in the drug discount program. They are happy to accept the cheaper medicines, but where do they end up? Out of the nearly 13,000 hospitals and community pharmacies participating in the 340B program today, fully six in ten are in middle class and affluent areas, not the poorer zip codes the program is meant to serve.
The post OP-ED: Safeguarding Charitable Medicines Programs in America first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

10 months ago

July 13, 2023

Oakland Post

By Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., President and CEO, National Newspaper Publishers Association

All Americans should have equal access to high quality healthcare. As our nation steadily emerges out of the awful debilitating aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of communities of color, and in particular the African American community, are all facing lingering challenges and prolonged difficulties in having access to affordable and quality healthcare.

The United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has many important and life-saving public health related programs that are structured and funded to ensure access to the best of healthcare offerings including the provision of affordable pharmaceuticals with respect to the most vulnerable and underserved communities across the nation.

One of those important governmental healthcare programs is known as the Charitable Medicines Program (340B). The 340B program began in the early 1990s when Congress wanted to require pharmaceutical manufacturers, as a condition of benefiting from government programs, to donate at low or no cost prescription drugs to charitable hospitals. These hospitals, overwhelmingly located in underserved urban and rural communities with patients of all races and ethnicities, were in turn expected to use these discount price medicines to serve patients who otherwise could not afford these drugs.

Today, Americans are facing unprecedented times. We are rebuilding our economy from a global pandemic. But there is another epidemic in this country (Entities putting profits over people) which must be addressed, and it must be addressed now. It’s one of the few things reasonable Americans on all sides of the political spectrum can agree on these days. Where it happens, there ought to be robust, bipartisan reform efforts to fix it. When it happens inside the context of a government program meant to help the poorest among us, it should mean robust oversight from the Congress and the Administration. That’s exactly what’s going on now with the charitable medicines program known as “340B.”

For a while, the program worked as intended. The average discount on a 340B drug is nearly 60%, and for many drugs it’s much more than that. But over time, greed has cropped up and made a mockery of the program resulting in practices which furthers health inequities in our nation.

The definition of a “charitable hospital” was never well-defined in law, and today 57% of all hospitals participate in the drug discount program. They are happy to accept the cheaper medicines, but where do they end up? Out of the nearly 13,000 hospitals and community pharmacies participating in the 340B program today, fully six in ten are in middle class and affluent areas, not the poorer zip codes the program is meant to serve.

How is this possible? How has a program Congress created to get Big PhRMA to give affordable drugs to charitable hospitals gone so far off the rails? The answer is that no one is minding the store in Washington. There are zero requirements for hospitals to use the cost savings from 340B to help needy patients, and there isn’t any rule requiring these hospitals to let patients know they are eligible for these drugs.

In addition, stand-alone hospitals are now the exception compared to the rule of a broad hospital network with facilities in diverse income areas. A hospital or clinic that qualifies for the discounted drugs in this program might be one of dozens of health care centers in a network conglomerate. As a result, the drug price reductions are eagerly gobbled up and the drugs fed into the larger system. To put a fine point on it, medicines intended for poor urban and rural areas are being re-routed and sold at full price to insured patients in more affluent areas. That’s the definition of health inequity.

This is not a mere theoretical concern. Last year, the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/health/bon-secours-mercy-health-profit-poor-neighborhood.html broke a story that Bon Secours, a hospital network in the Richmond, VA area, was accepting 340B discount drugs at Richmond Community Hospital, not telling local patients they were eligible for these free-to-inexpensive medicines, and selling the drugs for full price to patients in more affluent hospitals in their network. This led Richmond mayor Levar Stoney to send a letter to Bon Secours, charging them with using “loopholes [to increase] profit margins for the hospital system while they have reduced services in one of our predominantly Black communities.”

Notably, Mayor Stoney also called on the Biden Administration to increase oversight of the 340B program: “I request for your administration to urgently investigate the effectiveness and unintended consequences of 340B–not only regarding Bon Secours in the City of Richmond, but in other localities across the country.”

Untold stories like this exist in communities across the country. But the fact is the hospital lobbyists have influenced Congressional and Administration oversight officials from both political parties for decades. Every Congressman has a hospital in their district, and the 340b program must be used by the hospitals as Congress mandated.

That’s why I was proud to hear about a panel earlier this year organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton on this topic where he stated, “This affects everybody. If you are having people abuse government funds that should be reinvested, this is not a right-wing or left-wing issue.”

The executive branch runs the 340B program out of the Health Resources and Services Administration, a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services. HRSA, as it’s known, makes determinations of what entities are covered by the program, and they have been very generous over the years. According to the Government Accountability Office, the number of hospitals and clinics HRSA has approved has increased from fewer than 10,000 in 2010 to nearly 13,000 today–an increase of 30 percent in a little over a decade.

And while HRSA is supposed to collect information and conduct audits on 340B covered entities, they simply don’t have the manpower to do so. The little number of questions they do raise are answered and accepted, because there is no real oversight possible. There are only the staff resources to facilitate drug discounts to hospitals.

What’s urgently needed is a combination of Congressional hearings and a more inquisitorial HRSA. Until that happens, low income patients across America will be the excuse giant hospital chains use to get drugs at a discount rate and sell them at full price to more affluent patients.

The post OP-ED: Safeguarding Charitable Medicines Programs in America first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Up Next

OP-ED: Bidenomics Builds on Efforts to Invest in Struggling Communities

Don't Miss

Councilmember Kaplan Congratulates the Oakland Soul Women’s Soccer Team for Advancing to the Playoffs

Oakland Post

Click to comment

#NNPA BlackPress

IN MEMORIAM: Ramona Edelin, Influential Activist and Education Advocate, Dies at 78

NNPA NEWSWIRE — Born on September 4, 1945, in Los Angeles, California, activist Ramona Edelin’s early years were marked by a commitment to education and social justice. According to her HistoryMakers biography, after graduating from Fisk University with a Bachelor’s degree in 1967, she pursued further studies at the University of East Anglia in England. She earned her master’s degree before completing her Ph.D. at Boston University in 1981.
The post IN MEMORIAM: Ramona Edelin, Influential Activist and Education Advocate, Dies at 78 first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

4 weeks ago

April 3, 2024

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

Once upon a time, Black Americans were simply known as colored people, or Negroes. That is until Ramona Edelin came along. The activist, renowned for her pivotal roles in advancing civil rights, education reform, and community empowerment, died at her D.C. residence last month at the age of 78. Her death, finally confirmed this week by Barnaby Towns, a communications strategist who collaborated with Dr. Edelin, was attributed to cancer.

Born on September 4, 1945, in Los Angeles, California, Edelin’s early years were marked by a commitment to education and social justice. According to her HistoryMakers biography, after graduating from Fisk University with a Bachelor’s degree in 1967, she pursued further studies at the University of East Anglia in England. She earned her master’s degree before completing her Ph.D. at Boston University in 1981.

Edelin’s contributions to academia and activism were manifold. She was pivotal in popularizing the term “African American” alongside Rev. Jesse L. Jackson in the late 1980s.

Jackson had announced the preference for “African American,” speaking for summit organizers that included Dr. Edelin. “Just as we were called Colored, but were not that, and then Negro, but not that, to be called Black is just as baseless,” he said, adding that “African American” “has cultural integrity” and “puts us in our proper historical context.”

Later, Edelin told Ebony magazine, “Calling ourselves African Americans is the first step in the cultural offensive,” while linking the name change to a “cultural renaissance” in which Black Americans reconnected with their history and heritage.

“Who are we if we don’t acknowledge our motherland?” she asked later. “When a child in a ghetto calls himself African American, immediately he’s international. You’ve taken him from the ghetto and put him on the globe.”

The HistoryMakers bio noted that Edelin’s academic pursuits led her to found and chair the Department of African American Studies at Northeastern University, where she established herself as a leading voice.

Transitioning from academia to advocacy, Edelin joined the National Urban Coalition in 1977, eventually ascending to president and CEO. During her tenure, she spearheaded initiatives such as the “Say Yes to a Youngster’s Future” program, which provided crucial support in math, science, and technology to youth and teachers of color in urban areas. Her biography noted that Edelin’s efforts extended nationwide through partnerships with organizations like the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Education.

President Bill Clinton recognized Edelin’s expertise by appointing her to the Presidential Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities in 1998. She also co-founded and served as treasurer of the Black Leadership Forum, solidifying her standing as a respected leader in African American communities.

Beyond her professional achievements, Edelin dedicated herself to numerous boards and committees, including chairing the District of Columbia Educational Goals 2000 Panel and contributing to the Federal Advisory Committee for the Black Community Crusade for Children.

Throughout her life, Edelin received widespread recognition for her contributions. Ebony magazine honored her as one of the 100 Most Influential Black Americans, and she received prestigious awards such as the Southern Christian Leadership Award for Progressive Leadership and the IBM Community Executive Program Award.

The post IN MEMORIAM: Ramona Edelin, Influential Activist and Education Advocate, Dies at 78 first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Stacy M. Brown

Posts by Stacy M. Brown

#NNPA BlackPress

Tennessee State University Board Disbanded by MAGA Loyalists as Assault on DE&I Continues

NNPA NEWSWIRE — Recent legislative actions in Tennessee, such as repealing police reform measures enacted after the killing of Tyre Nichols, underscore a troubling trend of undermining local control and perpetuating racist agendas. The new law preventing local governments from restricting police officers’ authority disregards community efforts to address systemic issues of police violence and racial profiling.
The post Tennessee State University Board Disbanded by MAGA Loyalists as Assault on DE&I Continues first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

4 weeks ago

April 3, 2024

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

Tennessee State University (TSU), the state’s only public historically Black college and university (HBCU), faces a tumultuous future as Gov. Bill Lee dissolved its board, a move supported by racist conservatives and MAGA Republicans in the Tennessee General Assembly, who follow the lead of the twice-impeached, four-times indicted, alleged sexual predator former President Donald Trump. Educators and others have denounced the move as an attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) and a grave setback for higher education.

Critics argue that TSU’s purported financial mismanagement is a manufactured crisis rooted in decades of underinvestment by the state government. They’ve noted that it continues a trend by conservatives and the racist MAGA movement to eliminate opportunities for Blacks in education, corporate America, and the public sector.

Gevin Reynolds, a former speechwriter for Vice President Kamala Harris, emphasizes in an op-ed that TSU’s financial difficulties are not the result of university leadership because a recent audit found no evidence of fraud or malfeasance.

Reynolds noted that the disbanding of TSU’s board is not an isolated incident but part of a broader assault on DE&I initiatives nationwide. Ten states, including Tennessee, have enacted laws banning DE&I policies on college campuses, while governors appointing MAGA loyalists to university trustee positions further undermine efforts to promote inclusivity and equality.

Moreover, recent legislative actions in Tennessee, such as repealing police reform measures enacted after the killing of Tyre Nichols, underscore a troubling trend of undermining local control and perpetuating racist agendas. The new law preventing local governments from restricting police officers’ authority disregards community efforts to address systemic issues of police violence and racial profiling.

The actions echo historical efforts to suppress Black progress, reminiscent of the violent backlash against gains made during the Reconstruction era. President Joe Biden warned during an appearance in New York last month that Trump desires to bring the nation back to the 18th and 19th centuries – in other words, to see, among other things, African Americans back in the chains of slavery, women subservient to men without any say over their bodies, and all voting rights restricted to white men.

The parallels are stark, with white supremacist ideologies used to justify attacks on Black institutions and disenfranchise marginalized communities, Reynolds argued.

In response to these challenges, advocates stress the urgency of collective action to defend democracy and combat systemic racism. Understanding that attacks on institutions like TSU are symptomatic of broader threats to democratic norms, they call for increased civic engagement and voting at all levels of government.

The actions of people dedicated to upholding the principles of inclusivity, equity, and justice for all will determine the outcome of the ongoing fight for democracy, Reynolds noted. “We are in a war for our democracy, one whose outcome will be determined by every line on every ballot at every precinct,” he stated.

The post Tennessee State University Board Disbanded by MAGA Loyalists as Assault on DE&I Continues first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Stacy M. Brown

Posts by Stacy M. Brown

#NNPA BlackPress

Braxton Haulcy and the Expansion of Walker|West Music Academy

May 24, 2023 – Walker West Music Academy gets an early start on expansion. Join us for a Wednesday episode of The …
The post Braxton Haulcy and the Expansion of Walker|West Music Academy first appeared on BlackPressUSA.