Every Illinoisan deserves access to affordable quality health care close to home, including medication. That’s why I fully support legislation in Springfield that protects the federal 340B drug discount program — a program that helps hospitals and federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) stretch endemically scarce resources for vulnerable patients and communities. This program is even more important today than it was last spring, as hospitals and FQHCs face extreme distress from federal Medicaid cuts and drastic changes to the hospital assessment program in HR1.

Media recently have portrayed 340B as a “profit machine” for hospitals, which is simply untrue. The 340B program allows hospitals that serve high numbers of Medicaid and uninsured patients to purchase outpatient drugs at a discount. Those savings are reinvested in community care — funding free and reduced-cost prescriptions, mental health and substance use treatment services, cancer treatments, maternity care, and rural and urban clinics that would otherwise close their doors.

In Illinois, 70% of 340B hospitals are either safety net or critical access hospitals. In 2024 alone, these hospitals provided 1.5 million Medicaid inpatient days. These facilities and their dedicated front-line professionals care for our state’s most vulnerable residents. Meanwhile, the federal government slashes health care, and multinational pharmaceutical companies set record profits year after year. Yet in 2020, pharmaceutical manufacturers began arbitrarily limiting how hospitals can operate within the program — directly contradicting federal guidance and putting patient access at risk.

The bill, the Patient Access to 340B Pharmacy Protection Act (HB 2371 SA 2), does not expand the program or change its structure. It restores fairness and accountability by stopping drug manufacturers from restricting hospitals’ ability to use the 340B savings to provide care to patients and in their communities. The bill also requires transparency provisions, including information on how 340B savings are used to benefit patients; a new study to determine the impact of 340B on Medicaid in Illinois; and required policies to prevent duplicate discounts to protect manufacturers.

Pharmaceutical companies are not defending patients by attacking 340B — they are protecting profit margins. Your local 340B hospitals and FQHCs — like Primecare in Belmont Cragin and Erie Family Health Center in Humboldt Park — aren’t the villains in this story. They are the safety net — caring for anyone who walks through their doors, regardless of insurance or income.

Preserving the 340B program isn’t about protecting institutions; it’s about protecting patients and communities that rely on them.

— State Rep. Lindsey LaPointe, D-Chicago

340B helps South Side

A recent commentary (“Stop letting Chicago’s hospital aid flow to wealthy suburbs,” Oct. 24) suggesting that only small community hospitals deserve support from the 340B drug pricing program overlooks the critical role academic health systems like University of Chicago Medicine play in serving vulnerable populations. This is precisely the type of health care provider and patient population the 340B program was designed to support.

As Illinois’ largest health care provider of Medicaid-insured care, the University of Chicago Medical Center is  a key part of the UChicago Medicine system that supports the South Side community, which experiences significant health disparities and chronic disease burdens. This community deserves access to care that can be found only at an academic medical center, and we have been increasing access to our care.

Thanks to 340B, we have been able to redirect our resources toward essential services and programs that otherwise would be spent on drugs. We have added or expanded vital facilities and services for the South Side community, including a larger adult emergency department, a Level 1 adult trauma center and the Center for Care and Discovery, a 10-story hospital for complex care. In 2027, we will open the state’s first free-standing cancer hospital on our South Side campus, serving a community where cancer is the second-leading cause of death.

Our commitment extends throughout Chicagoland — including at UChicago Medicine Ingalls Memorial Hospital, a safety net in Harvey that provides care to a largely Medicaid-insured population in the Southland community.

In fiscal year 2024, our health system invested $715 million in community benefits and services. Of that amount, at the University of Chicago Medical Center alone, we invested $631.5 million in the South Side community, including a nationally recognized violence recovery program, a vital part of the area’s only comprehensive trauma services. Our Meds-2-Beds and outpatient pharmacies provide free or discounted medications to patients who otherwise could not afford them.

Without 340B, many essential programs — such as our Level 1 adult and pediatric trauma centers, the South Side’s only burn unit, neonatal intensive care unit and Chicago’s only hospital-based emergency helicopter services — would be at risk. Other hospitals on the South Side have either closed or greatly scaled back services in recent decades. 340B is indispensable to sustaining the comprehensive care our community depends on.

At a time when health care funding is increasingly constrained, 340B remains more important than ever to help us fulfill our mission of providing equitable, high-quality care.

— Dr. Mark E. Anderson, executive vice president for medical affairs, University of Chicago, and Thomas Jackiewicz, president, University of Chicago Health System

Pause 340B measure

Today, we must call on members of the Illinois legislature to pause the 340B drug program bill and focus on advocating for federal reforms that would truly prioritize patients over profits. Rushed decisions never make sense. We need more time to enforce the right transparency, ensure reinvestment in underserved areas and hold all participants accountable. The 340B program has the potential to make health care more equitable — but only if it’s done right.

Our mission at BlackDoctor.org in Chicago is to make every Black family as healthy as possible. The legislation being considered will serve no benefit to thousands of patients struggling with medical costs today.

While the 340B program was intended to help patients in underserved communities with financial burdens and medical debts, it has ultimately strayed far from its original purpose of expanding health care access for vulnerable populations.

If 340B worked as intended, patients in our communities would face less medical debt and hospitals would be accountable for reinvesting program savings back into patient care. But right now, there is no proper tracking or transparency. Less than one-fifth of large hospitals nationwide clearly explain their 340B policies.

If 340B was done right:

1. Patients in our community would have less financial burden and medical debt.
2. Hospitals’ use of 340B funds would be tracked and measured, and there would be accountability.
3. There would be benchmarks for how much 340B revenue hospitals reinvest into patient care.

Pharmacies in Black neighborhoods have declined significantly, while Black patients are much more likely to carry medical debt than patients in other racial groups. Meanwhile, 340B has expanded into wealthier, less diverse areas while moving further away from its mission to serve the underserved. Only 38% of 340B hospitals nationwide are even located in medically under-resourced areas.

— Dr. Sharon D. Allison, 340B adviser, and Shari Beagelman, chief of staff, BlackDoctor.org

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