Laura Kelly must sign HB 2551 into law to help vulnerable Kansans get affordable medicines

It’s hard to be healthy without access to care.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought front and center how our current health care system does not work for minority communities. Latino, Black and American Indian Kansans lost their lives and were hospitalized at higher rates due to the virus, in part because they are disproportionately affected by chronic conditions and generally have lower access to medical treatment and services.

Through a pandemic or the daily challenges to access and afford prescription medications, government programs should lift these individuals up and help them lead healthy lives. Yet Kansas legislators are pushing forward policy changes to a federal program that won’t help the most vulnerable in Kansas at the pharmacy counter.

In 1992, Congress established the 340B Drug Pricing Program with the objective to help low-income, underinsured and uninsured patients access their medicines.

The 340B program requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to provide drug discounts to specific safety-net, nonprofit hospitals, for-profit contract pharmacies and federally funded clinics, including many such entities here in Kansas, so they could pass savings along to vulnerable patient communities.

As intended, the 340B program would immensely benefit Latino and Black Kansans, who earn significantly less than white Kansans. In practice, however, the program has failed to work for patients and has instead become a money grab for 340B hospitals and pharmacies.

With no requirement for 340B hospitals to pass savings from drug discounts to patients, the program has for years been a profit-making scheme with little to show for patients. Today, 340B hospitals enjoy a 300% profit margin on 340B drugs.

Of all the 340B hospitals in Kansas, 80% are below the national average for charity care levels. In total, these hospitals make more than double from discounts derived from the 340B program than what they spend on charity care.

As 340B hospitals stack profits, the most vulnerable Kansans continue to slip further into debt, the burden of which disproportionately impacts minority populations. Kansans of racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to be uninsured than their white neighbors, with Hispanics having the highest likelihood of being uninsured at 21.7% percent.

To compound the challenges facing vulnerable communities in our state, less than half of 340B contract pharmacies are located in medically underserved areas in Kansas. Covered entities like hospitals and treatment centers also ship savings meant to help Kansas patients all over the country, as far away as Hawaii and Massachusetts.

Of the 598 contract pharmacies with active contracts with covered entities in Kansas, over 200 of them are not in the state.

Since 2010, the 340B program has ballooned while health inequities have persisted for Latinos and other minorities in Kansas. Yet the Kansas Legislature has advanced policies in the state budget that would not address these practices and instead will allow 340B hospitals and pharmacies to use the program as a profitmaking scheme at the expense of vulnerable Kansans.

Previous legislative efforts have failed to address the detrimental tactics employed by large hospitals and contract pharmacies within the 340B program, often lacking safeguards against potential abuse.

Fortunately, Gov. Laura Kelly has the opportunity to shift our focus in Kansas by signing HB 2551 into law. This is a necessary step toward reforms that improve the affordability and accessibility of medicines for vulnerable Kansans and ensure patients reap the benefits of drug discounts.

Rosa Cavazos is a Topeka resident and vice chairwoman of MANA, a National Latina Organization.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Laura Kelly must sign HB 2551 to help our most vulnerable Kansans