A federal judge has blocked a Trump administration policy that reduces payments to hospitals under a drug discount program, ruling Thursday that the government overstepped its authority in an attempt to address the high cost of prescription medications.
The decision is a win for the 2,000-plus hospitals participating in the program, known as 340B, most of which serve large numbers of low-income patients.
In 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services reduced its reimbursements for some drugs by about 28 percentage points, or $1.6 billion, starting on January 1, 2018.
The inequity between “low income” and those on Social Security deciding between good and prescriptions is appalling! We have young healthy people who NEVER worked and don’t WANT to work getting FREE prescriptions on Medicaid while seniors struggle to carry additional prescription insurance with monthly premiums, high deductibles, high co pays and limited formulates!!!
/healthpayerintelligence
com/news/doj-recovers-2.5b-in-healthcare-fraud-false-claims-in-2018
Case in point!
2.5 Billion. That’s B for Billion in false claims recovered and mainly at the hospital level.
If institutions had not mis appropriated 340B discounts to NON 340B qualified patients then this situation wouldn’t have evolved the way it did. It’s that simple.
There were some pretty well known medical institutions who WERE the profit leeches.
To attempt to reduce the 340B support to hospitals that serve low-income patients is tantamount to outright ignorance for those in the health care industry who are not for-profit-leeches. Good for this Judge to force the HHS to look elsewhere (into deeper pockets) for drug pricing cuts !