340B covered entity allies in the U.S. House are booking an hour of floor speeches by members lauding the drug discount program next week Tuesday after all legislative business is finished.
Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) are organizing the Feb. 8 “special order speeches” about 340B. These end-of-day remarks, usually to an empty chamber but watched live by many on television, are a staple of C-SPAN programming. The speeches are published in the Extension of Remarks section of that day’s Congressional Record.
“This 340B Special-Order Hour is an opportunity to share stories from your district underscoring the value of the 340B program back home,” Spanberger and Johnson said in an email to colleagues inviting them to participate. Members, they suggested, also could use their time to urge the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) to take immediate enforcement action against drug companies that “flout the law and unlawfully deny savings that 340B providers rely on to serve their patients.”
Spanberger, Johnson, and Reps. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa), Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), David McKinley (R-W.Va.), and John Katko (R-N.Y.) asked HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra in a Jan. 21 letter “to move quickly to enforce the law and begin assessing civil monetary penalties on manufacturers that have denied 340B pricing to providers.”
